On August 29, 2023, the online newspaper “Welt” published an article with the headline “Game cancellations in amateur football – DFB names shocking figures”. The article claims that in the past 2022/23 season, 961 games in amateur football were canceled due to violence and discrimination. The claim is considered: mostly true.
For better understanding, the expression “violence and discrimination in amateur football” is explained at the beginning. In a leaflet by the DFB, acts of violence and discrimination are defined as follows: “An act of violence occurs when an accused person physically attacks a person who has been harmed, for example by hitting, throwing things at them, spitting on them or kicking them. In addition, a threat can also be viewed as an act of violence. Attempts must also be reported.” The term discrimination is defined as violating the dignity of another person or a group of people. This includes derogatory statements, gestures or actions in connection with origin, skin color, language, religion, disability, age, gender or sexual identity. Statements such as “asshole!” or “worst referee of all time” are not recorded.
Game cancellations at all time high
The article states that last season 961 amateur football games had to be canceled due to violence and discrimination. The primary source for this statement is the annual situation report from the German Football Association (DFB). Since 2014/15, the DFB has been publishing situation reports to show the number of violence and discrimination incidents in amateur football. The figures for the DFB’s annual situation reports come from the online match reports, which are filled out ater the game by the respective referees on DFBnet. At the end of the season the numbers are presented in the situation report. “We take the vast majority of reported incidents at football games from the referee reports. Of course, it sometimes happens that we receive reports from spectators or from our conflict controllers or game observers who are out and about at the games,” says a representative of one of the DFB’s regional associations.
However, a number of unreported cases cannot be ruled out. “There is definitely a number of unknown cases, but I’ll go by the numbers available. The number of game cancellations has definitely increased. Basically, the number of total incidents hasn’t really increased, but the number of game abandonments has increased. We notice a rise.” According to the 2022/23 situation report, a match report was submitted for 1,234,154 games out of 1,428,657 amateur games. There are no match reports for 194,503 games in amateur football, which is 13.61 percent. It can be assumed that there have been unreported cases in previous years as well. The graphic below shows the progression of game abandonments over the years. The numbers were taken from the DFB situation reports.
Data source: DFB situation reports.
The claim that 961 amateur games were canceled due to violence and discrimination can therefore be classified as mostly true.
Change in sight
Furthermore, the Welt article claims that the trend has been stopped but “the numbers are stagnating at a high level.” This statement comes from the interviewee in the “Welt” article Ronny Zimmermann, Vice President of the DFB. The representative of one of the 21 state associations also agrees with this. “The potential for violence has already increased, for example there was the case with the death of the 15-year-old soccer player near Frankfurt. Such incidents naturally ensure that general attention is increased. It can definitely be seen that the severity of the incidents has increased. This can be measured by the number of game abandonments, which have increased.”
** Season overlapped with the corona pandemic, therefore less significant
As seen in the graphics listed, there is a slight increase in acts of violence and incidents of discrimination between the years 2021/22 and 2022/2023. In both cases, the numbers in 2022/2023 are not as high as in 2014 – 2019, but have still increased compared to the last year. The low number of incidents in the 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 season could however be explained by the effects of the Corona pandemic. This would also explain the low number of incidents in the 2020/2021 season. The claim that the trend has stopped but that the numbers are stagnating at a high level can therefore be classified as mostly true. However, due to the Corona pandemic and its effects, the numbers are not meaningful enough to classify them as true.
Conclusion
The claim by “Welt” that 961 games in amateur football were canceled last season due to violence and discrimination can be classified as mostly true. However, the unreported number of 194,503 games was not taken into account, which leads to a distortion of the numbers given in the article. The claim that the trend has stopped and the numbers are stagnating at a high level can also be classified as mostly true. Due to the lack of match reports and the effects of the Corona pandemic, no precise statement, such as true or false, can be made here. Therefore, the article “Game abandonments in amateur football – DFB names shocking figures” from the online magazine “Welt” can be classified as mostly true.
RESEARCH | ARTICLE – Muriel Breisch and Felix Strickmann, Jade University of Applied Sciences, Germany
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