SAccording to his own statements, referee Felix Zwayer was severely attacked after the fuss about his person at the Bundesliga summit between Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich. “My work email account has received numerous messages that are incredible and that are very difficult to deal with and ignore,” said the currently inactive 40-year-old on the Sky program “My Story”. The Berlin police wrote to him “that there was a death threat against me on the Internet”.
Zwayer was criticized by Dortmund after their 3-2 defeat in early December. BVB young star Jude Bellingham verbally attacked the 40-year-old. The Englishman had indirectly accused Zwayer of bribery, alluding to the 17-year-old Robert Hoyzer scandal: “You give a referee who has already postponed games the biggest game in Germany. What do you expect?”
Zwayer rejects allegations
Zwayer said he “couldn’t hide his reactions from his wife” as a result. “Especially because they got incredibly close to me. So what happens when you’re scheduled for an international game three days later? You try to load and pick up this backpack and say goodbye to your wife in the door, as you have done for 15 years. And then you see how she bursts into tears.” It is a situation “that is difficult to bear, to be honest – that is very difficult to bear,” said Zwayer.
According to the court documents on the Hoyzer scandal, Zwayer, who helped uncover the affair, accepted money like Hoyzer at the time. The referee contradicted this: “I was never offered any money, I was never obviously told of any game-fixing that was intended or carried out. I have never received money from Robert for any involvement in any manipulation of a game.” Not even from anyone else, Zwayer added when asked.
Zwayer took a break after the game in Dortmund in early December. “Felix Zwayer wants to mentally recover and reflect on what happened after the game in Dortmund,” said chief referee Lutz Michael Fröhlich.
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