The sports director of Slovan Liberec, Theo Gebre Selassie, does not agree with the general ban, which from next season will prevent club managers from moving on the bench or in its immediate vicinity during matches. According to him, this is a habit he brought from the German Bundesliga.
“Why can’t I be there? It’s a completely normal thing. I’m not there to put pressure on the referee, as someone might think,” said Gebre Selassie in an interview with Livesport News.
The LFA league committee unanimously decided on this already in mid-September after the incident of the former sports director of Hradec Králové Jiří Sabou, who got into a conflict with Sparta’s goalkeeper Peter Vindahl (27) while going to the cabins.
“Then I see how the other benches behave, which the pressure on the referee clearly creates and no one solves it anymore,” continued Gebre Selassie, not referring to Sabou, but to other sharp exchanges of views that were not solved by the disciplinary officer.
“Sure, it’s difficult to stay calm when you perceive a wrongdoing, but I’m not being rude. We’re not there in the technical area to tell the referees what they can and can’t do. They’re running the game and we should respect that.”
An unequivocal point will be added to the 2026/2027 competition rules, which will make it impossible for representatives of all teams to be included in the minutes, for example, as “technical support”, as in the case of Sabou or Velič Šumulikoský from Slovácko, who experience the matches emotionally, but also other officials, including Gebre Selassie, who did not get into any conflict.
“Some have a problem behaving decently, so we will face a collective punishment in the form of being banned,” the Liberec sports director does not understand.
“It’s a shame, because the view of football from the bench is different than when you’re sitting in the stands. You notice a lot of things that you can then pass on to the coaching staff. Rather than solving people’s behavior, we’ll ban it outright. If I compare it to Germany, where it works without a problem, no one will allow similar behavior there. How is this possible?” he asks.
One note: the ban will not take effect until next season, as the competition rules do not allow for changes during the year. Clubs have therefore been asked not to allow officials to sit on the bench for the rest of the season. Not everyone accepted this recommendation.
