The court of the German association today (Friday) officially rejected its request for Freiburg to appeal the result of the game against Bayern Munich, which ended in 1: 4 in favor of the Bavarians. As you may recall, Julian Naglesman’s team mistakenly shared 12 players for 17 seconds due to a confusion in the substitution, but this did not in any way affect the conduct of the game. Although the German champions believed that the team from fifth place would not appeal the result, it did so in the end – but as mentioned, its request was denied.
The reasoning for the decision was written in the court that Bayern could not be blamed for the malfunction and that the case occurred due to “lack of communication between the judging panel”, said Stepo Oberholtz, president of the German association’s tribunal. “Bayern had such a minimal part in the case and it is not enough to justify a penalty like changing the outcome of the game.”
The tribunal’s decision is surprising in light of the fact that during the week it was expected in Germany that Bayern would be obliged to a technical loss of 2: 0 as according to the rules any illegal player participation constitutes a technical loss – and here the team played with one player more than allowed, even for only 17 seconds.
However, the refereeing team is the one responsible for making sure that the substitute player leaves the field and only then will the player who takes his place be able to get on the pitch. According to the tribunal, the fourth referee was supposed to prevent Marcel Zavitzer from entering the same substitution with Kingsley Coman in the 84th minute.
As mentioned, the result of the game remained as it is, and this means that Bayern Munich was left with a 9-point advantage at the top, with six more rounds left to end the season.