Believe it or not, there’s a zipper-related imbroglio in the sports world that has nothing to do with Tiger Woods or ESPN. When Saturday Comes Daily’s Karsten Blaas reports Germany’s Football Association has presided over something akin to Dick Bavetta conducting a secret affair with Stu Jackson. Except for their ages, that is.
In early February, internal DFB documents were leaked to the media and made front-page headlines. According to these publications, Michael Kempter, 27, and four other referees whose names remained unknown had accused supervisor Manfred Amarell, a 62-year-old married father, of sexually molesting them. Amarell denied the allegations immediately, stating that he had an œintensive private friendship with Kempter. œI have never forced him against his will. Our contacts happened in mutual consent, he said. For the DFB, however, it was beyond doubt that Amarell was the guilty party. Chairman Zwanziger called it œa necessary move when Amarell retired from office a few days later.
Having lost his job and his dignity, Amarell retaliated. In a TV talk show he called Kempter a liar for denying their œphysical relationship. And he all but destroyed the young referee™s career by presenting an email that apparently Kempter had sent him in April 2007, a few hours before Bayern Munich™s 2-0 defeat at AC Milan in the Champions League. œHopefully, Bayern will lose, the mail read. œThen we can raise our glasses. It seems unlikey that the DFB will ever again appoint a match official again who has expressed his aversion to a specific club. Amarell™s main target, however, was Zwanziger. The FA chairman had œblackmailed him into retirement, Amarell claimed, and concluded: œZwanziger is not interested in human beings.