Wolf-Dieter Ahlenfelder (11 February 1944 – 2 August 2014) was a German

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

referee A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other titl ...

. Between 1974 and 1988 Ahlenfelder refereed 106 games in the

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footba ...

as well as 77

2. Bundesliga The 2. Bundesliga ( ) is the second division of professional football in Germany. It was implemented 11 years after the founding of the Fußball-Bundesliga as the new second division for professional football. The 2. Bundesliga is ranked below ...

games.Halbzeit-Pause nach 32 Minuten
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kicker.de ''Kicker'' (stylized in all lowercase) is Germany's leading sports magazine, focused primarily on football. The magazine was founded in 1920 by German football pioneer Walther Bensemann and is published twice weekly, usually Monday and Thursday ...

'', published: 8 November 2015, accessed: 12 November 2015Wolf-Dieter Ahlenfelder ist tot
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Biography

Ahlenfelder is best remembered for the game between

SV Werder Bremen Sportverein Werder Bremen von 1899 e. V. (), commonly known as Werder Bremen (), Werder or simply Bremen, is a German professional sports club based in Bremen, Bremen (state), Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. Founded on 4 February 1899, they are be ...

and

Hannover 96 Hannoverscher Sportverein von 1896, commonly referred to as Hannover 96 (), Hannover, HSV or simply 96, is a German professional football club based in the city of Hanover, Lower Saxony. They played in the Bundesliga for a total of 30 years betwe ...

in the

1975–76 Bundesliga The 1975–76 Bundesliga was the 13th season of the Bundesliga, West Germany's premier football league. It began on 9 August 1975 and ended on 12 June 1976. Borussia Mönchengladbach were the defending champions. Competition modus Every team pl ...

season when he called

half-time In several team sports, matches are played in two halves. Half-time (also written halftime or half time) is the name given to the interval between the two halves of the match. Typically, after half-time, teams swap ends of the field of play in or ...

after 32 minutes instead of the regulation 45. After complaints by the players Ahlenfelder questioned his assistant who confirmed that it was indeed too early to call half time. He continued the first half but still stopped it a minute early. Later questioning revealed that Ahlenfelder had been drinking during his lunch before the game and felt a little confused. He received a short ban from officiating Bundesliga games but was soon allowed back as a referee. Ahlenfelder was popular with Bundesliga players because of his direct nature. When told by former German international Paul Breitner that he is "refereeing like an asshole" Ahlenfelder replied to Breitner "could it be that you are playing like an asshole?". When players took longer than he desired to get up after being fouled Ahlenfelder would tell them "get up, the under-soil heating isn't switched on anyway". In the 1983–84 Ahlenfelder was voted best German football referee and awarded the ''Golden Whistle'' (German: ''Goldene Pfeife''). In an interview in 2007 Ahlenfelder stated that he missed the attention he received while refereeing. He also stated that modern referees were too colourless and restricted by the rules of the game, exposed to constant surveillance and criticism.Startseite Ex-Schiri Ahlenfelder über Fanta, Fans und Funktionäre
reviersport.de, published: 24 November 2007, accessed: 12 November 2015 Ahlenfelder, who suffered from

diabetes Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by a high blood sugar level ( hyperglycemia) over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms often include frequent urination, increased thirst and increased ap ...

in his later life, died on 2 August 2014 in

Oberhausen Oberhausen (, ) is a city on the river Emscher in the Ruhr Area, Germany, located between Duisburg and Essen ( ). The city hosts the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and its Gasometer Oberhausen is an anchor point of the European Rout ...

, the city of his birth. By profession he was a

merchant A merchant is a person who trades in commodities produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Historically, a merchant is anyone who is involved in business or trade. Merchants have operated for as long as indust ...

, working for a

mineral oil Mineral oil is any of various colorless, odorless, light mixtures of higher alkanes from a mineral source, particularly a distillate of petroleum, as distinct from usually edible vegetable oils. The name 'mineral oil' by itself is imprecise, ...

company.

References

External links

Profile
at worldfootball.net {{DEFAULTSORT:Ahlenfelder, Wolf 1944 births 2014 deaths German football referees 20th-century German people