After the final whistle it got loud |
Referee takes on fan
On Saturday at Hoffenheim against Bochum (3: 2) it was not only hot on the pitch…
After the final whistle, it suddenly got really loud on the way to the dressing room. In focus: Referee Patrick Ittrich (43), who was in a clear dialogue with a 60-year-old Hoffenheim fan in the main stand.
Ittrich to BILD: “I was accosted for no reason. When asked what I had done wrong, he couldn’t come up with any arguments. I get emotional at times.”
Simply disappearing into the dressing room without comment was out of the question for Ittrich: “People like that come to the stadium to rabble, but as a referee you don’t have to put up with everything. When you approach people directly, it has an effect.”
Ittrich has often had success with his communicative style: “In Bochum I was once insulted in the worst possible way by a fan, then I talked to him for a long time. He later thanked me for it on Instagram.”
Ittrich is already considered a referee representative who appears transparently in public. The Hamburg native has been commenting on Twitter for a year and regularly talks about his job as a referee in his podcast “Refitcom”.