Fans everywhere like to think that referees are inherently corrupt. Such thinking helps mask the painful truth that their team is not up to much. But in 2005, German fans were sadly right…
Brian O’Driscoll, our man in Berlin, recounts a tale of bent refs, flat-screen TVs, and Hamburger relish!
The Referee’s A Hoyzer!
Sex sells! Now, there’s a phrase to grab the attention. So, what has sex and the selling of it got to do with the German match-fixing scandal that has, to use the old cliché, “rocked football to its core?” Well, maybe not much to you and me, but to Teutonic television, it’s the vital ingredient.
When we think of referees, we normally conjure images of myopic middle-aged old dodderers, guide dogs for the blind, and comb-across hair. Sure enough, when the news broke in Germany of alleged match-manipulation by a referee, thoughts turned to the prospect of a down-at-heel old codger, bitter at missed opportunities, allowing the prospect of a big pay day cloud his values and love for the game. Oh, and comb-across hair.
Imagine the surprise when the alleged transgressor turned out to be younger than most players and better looking than Rudi Voeller. Robert Hoyzer, 25, come on down! The man of the moment is certainly not quite what we had imagined, and the German media can’t get enough of him. His tearful television declarations of remorse seem somewhat in step with what currently passes for informative broadcasting on German TV. Just this week, a programme going by the rather unfortunate title of “The Sperm Race” airs, and you guessed it (or maybe not), uses chemicals to “race” the sperm of members of the public to a female egg – and all because “fertility is a big issue in Germany right now” according to the producers. That’s us told, then.
In this climate, Hoyzer is the newest and biggest pop star, the boy-band member gone bad, but one Granny thinks she might yet set straight. This bent ref is now appearing on one of Germany’s most popular (and worst) talk shows, and ready to tell a transfixed (ooer) nation why he did what he did (oh, and why he should be spared the indignity of prison by being a good boy and helping the investigation). Yes, that doyen of late-night Teutonic televisual blandishment, Johannes B. Kerner (imagine somebody insignificant, and then extract the last ounce of significance), has invited young Robert on to tell it as he sees it. With the Kleenex, no doubt, at hand, Kerner will grill the lachrymose whistler as only he can: inoffensively.
However, it’s not the quality of the host’s coffee-table manner that offends, but the very fact that the self-confessed match-rigger is being celebrated in the manner that he is. Manfred Amerell, a member of the Deutsche Fussball Bund’s refereeing committee, blasted: “The biggest scandal is that a criminal gets a forum in a talkshow.” Amerell, one of the old school, fails to realise that a bent young Hoyzer is far more attractive to the Kerners of the world than a straight old version of himself. Not that anybody is suggesting anything about Herr Amerell. Well, except that all refs are bent – which now seems to be the prevailing view among a general public spoon-fed sperm races at prime-time. Of course, the public-minded Herr Kerner has defended his gold-digging, I mean, decision, telling Süddeutsche Zeitung: “This discussion is ridiculous, and mainly led by those that don’t get to talk to him on their shows. Hozyer is a topic and therefore a guest on my show.” Fertility is a topic too, apparently, and it gets its own show, so there’s a certain consistency in all of this..
Kerner goes on to say that he has invited on the self-confessed rigger to see “how Hoyzer lives with the thought of having damaged a football nation before the World Cup in their own country, just for a few euro and a flat-screen TV.” I don’t know how he does live with it, Herr Kerner, nor do I particularly care, but damaging the credibility of German broadcasting for a few euro and more flat-screen TVs tuned to your show doesn’t seem to concern your perfectly-coiffeured pate.
While this circus has been conducted in three rings in full panoramic wide-screen, the fans of Hamburger SV have been relishing the sizzle of prime referee rump, for it was HSV who lost to Paderborn in the infamous cup tie that Hoyzer now admits to fixing. Oh the vindication for fans when the truth behind their embarrassing demise emerged. Logically enough, they want reinstatement into a competition that has reached its last eight without them. All they need now is a “topic” or an “issue” and perhaps they will get some air-time. Then again, throw them a few flat-screen TVs as compensation and they’ll surely go away…
Brian A. O’Driscoll
Originally posted at Goal.com: 09/02/2005 03:28
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