Admin l Friday, February 3, 2023
GERMANY – Referee Deniz Aytekin explained he showed a red card to Mainz coach Bo Svensson during the German Cup match against Bayern Munich because he and his team were insulted.
“He asked loudly if we were blind. That’s not ok, we already endure a lot. We won’t let ourselves be insulted, that’s where the limit is for me,” Aytekin said after the match, which ended with a 4-0 win for Bayern.
“We’re not the trash cans of the nation,” he stressed.
Svensson saw a red card and had to leave the sidelines in the 81st minute. According to Aytekin, they had a chat after the match and “everything is fine, but at that moment it was too much.”
The insult, which was directed to fourth official Martin Petersen, is “not a language I want to hear on the pitch,” Aytekin explained.
Svensson confirmed he apologized to the referee and admitted that “at some point, I asked the fourth official if he was blind.”
