That Bundesliga Ghost Goal

As I sat and watched the German Bundesliga on Friday night I could not believe my eyes, when I witnessed what everyone is now calling the Ghost Goal. To say the match officials made a major blunder is an understatement. The game I am talking about is Bayer Leverkusen v  Hoffenheim and the incident was the scoring of the winning goal. Read on and I will describe, and let you know what I think went wrong.

Leverkusen was awarded a corner and as the ball floated in across goal, Keissling rose and headed the ball wide. Now somehow the ball ended up in the back of net, que mayhem. The referee Felix Brych pointed to the half way line indicating a goal had been scored. Unbelievable, considering the player who had headed the ball wide was seen to be holding his head after missing. Now I know a mistake had been made but i’m going to try and outline in my opinion where the problems all started for the match officials.

When officials arrive on the ‘field of play’ before the game they inspect the pitch from one end to the other.  They check all markings, nets and corner flags etc. Now I know from experience they would have done this before the game but I think I know where the mistake could have been made. When inspecting the 'field of play', the refs would have looked at all parts of the net as well, they would have checked that they are pinned to the ground and hooked to the crossbar. But not just that, we were always told when I was on the FIFA panel, you should check the whole net from crossbar to post to ground. We were also instructed to check the nets again just before the start of the second half and to be aware if players had fallen into the net during the first half just in case of any damage that may have occurred.

So all of this is basic checks that need to be done and obviously were not carried out to the full extent of which I would have had to have done when I was involved in our beautiful game. As I always say to people “the referee’s team is my team on the pitch” and over the weekend I can only imagine how the four officials must have felt. But if you’re reading this, and you are aspiring to go to the top level in refereeing, it is not always the on the pitch decisions that can destroy a career, it is the whole package. So be completely happy that you have checked everything and leave nothing to chance. It is easier in the long run.

The outcome of all this will not become clearer until during the week I would imagine, but as I am writing I am hearing Hoffenheim have lodged a complaint with the German FA and are looking for the game to be replayed. This will have a knock on effect for the whole season on both the clubs fixture lists. I’d like to reiterate what I said earlier as a match official do the simple things right and you won’t have a problem, fail to do so and you can just que the mayhem. I have always felt the most important thing in a referee or an assistant referee’s armoury as he goes to do his game is preparation.