Shame Penalty Of Leipzig

The shame penalty of Leipzig (german: Schand-Elfmeter von Leipzig) was a controversial penalty decision by referee Bernd Stumpf during a match in the 1985–86 season of the DDR-Oberliga between 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig and BFC Dynamo, which took place on 22 March 1986 at the Bruno-Plache-Stadion in Leipzig. Following the match, the Deutscher Fußball-Verband (DFV), the umbrella organization for football in East Germany, for the first time permanently banned a referee.

Background

The game between 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig and BFC Dynamo took place on 22 March 1986 at the sold-out Bruno-Plache-Stadion in Leipzig in front of 13,000 spectators. While the defending champions and record title-holders from Berlin led the table before the 18th matchday, the hosts Leipzig, in fourth place, had to win if they wanted to keep up in the race for the championship.

Match

Summary

Leipzig took the lead from Olaf Marschall in the second minute and kept their lead into the break. In the fourth minute of stoppage time, referee Bernd Stumpf awarded a penalty to BFC Dynamo after a duel between Leipzig player Hans Richter and Bernd Schulz of BFC Dynamo, with its legitimacy not completely clear on the television images. Frank Pastor converted the penalty for BFC Dynamo. In an interview with East German football weekly Die neue Fußballwoche after the match, Richter defended himself saying: "I got a cramp, stretched out my arms and touched the Berliner". The match ended in a 1–1 draw, leaving 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig six points behind BFC with eight matchdays remaining, and now in fifth place, seemingly out of the title race. The fact that Leipzig finished only 2 points behind BFC at the end of season gave the game retrospective importance.

Details

Consequences

BFC Dynamo was a representative of both the Stasi and the capital. The club was therefore viewed with more suspicion than affection. The privileges of BFC Dynamo and its overbearing success in the 1980s made fans of opposing teams easily aroused as to what they saw as manipulation by bent referees.

Due to decisions for a long time had allegedly gone the way of BFC Dynamo, a tense and aggressive mood could be seen before the match. After the controversial penalty decision of referee Stumpf, unprecedented decisions were made at the association level of East German football. The chairman of 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig Peter Gießner and high-ranking SED officials in Bezirk Leipzig spoke openly of fraud and demanded that such important matches should no longer take place during the trade fair, "since even the foreign guests could notice some of the filth".

With the incident being shown on East German television, protests flowed into the office of the Secretary for Security, Youth and Sport in the SED Central Committee Egon Krenz from outraged citizens and SED party members at a time when the SED was preparing for its 11th Party Congress. The SED General Secretary Erich Honecker and Krenz were fed up with the "football-question" and the "BFC-discussion". And the constant rioting at the guest performances of BFC Dynamo around the country was annoying in the SED Politburo. Stumpf was consequently made an example of. He was initially given a one-year league suspension. But eventually, he was permanently banned as a result of the continuing negative headlines. The sanctions against Stumpf were approved by Honecker and Krenz in the SED Central Committee. The refereeing committee of the DFV was also suspended and replaced by new members. In various reports, the episode went down in history as the ''Schand-Elfmeter von Leipzig'', or the "Shame penalty of Leipzig".

Stumpf sent a petition to SED General Secretary Honecker and asked him to review the measures taken against him. He emphasized his previously good service to the GDR and criticized the recent trend to scapegoap officials for decisions made in BFC Dynamo matches (and BFC Dynamo matches only). However, Krenz told Honecker that the measures against Stumpf had been "met with broad approval among the population" and asked Honecker to give him the task of answering the letter from Stumpf. Krenz was then allowed to answer Stumpf, and Stumpf was rejected.

Stumpf later testified that the DFV Deputy General Secretary Volker Nickchen had gone for a walk with him before the match for the referee's briefing. Nickchen had talked about the explosiveness of the match and so on. Stumpf claimed that some things Nickchen said during the walk almost sounded as if 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig was going to win. Nickchen has denied the allegation and claims that he only asked Stumpf to whistle with sensitivity.

Through a training video filmed from a different perspective than the television-broadcast, which was published by Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) in 2000, it was eventually shown that the penalty was correctly awarded and that the sanction of referee Stumpf was unjustified. The training video showed how Hans Richter pushed Bernd Schulz with both hands in the penalty area. In an interview with German newspaper Die Zeit in 2000, Stumpf said: "The people have never understood, how this Leipzig game was used by the highest officials in the party and government."

Former professional player Heiko Brestrich, who played the match for BFC Dynamo, and who have since also played for VfB Leipzig