According to his own statements, referee Felix Zwayer was violently 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,” reported 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.
Zwayer said he “couldn’t hide the 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 her bursting into tears.” This 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 money, I was never obviously told of any intended or carried out match-fixing. I have never received any money from Robert for any involvement in any manipulation of a game.” Also not from another person, Zwayer added when asked. (dpa)