Saturday, September 10, 2022 at 4:38 PM• Mart Oude Nijeweeme • Last update: 16:43

Remarkably enough, the Fair Play Award went to a stadium speaker in Germany this year. Arnd Zeigler, who is the regular voice in the stadium at Werder Bremen, earned the award after a moment in the derby against Hamburger SV (0-2 loss) last season. Zeigler pointed out to Bremen fans a rule change after a disallowed goal. That was enough for the German federation to hand him the sportsmanship prize.

The moment in question occurred last season at the second level in Germany. In the home game against HSV, Werder thought he would score, but the goal was disallowed by the referee. Marvin Ducksch, who scored from a free kick, was assisted in his goal by teammate Mitchell Weiser who had squeezed into the opponent’s wall. Fans of Werder turned against the referee after the disallowed goal, but Zeigler did not agree.

The stadium speaker single-handedly decided to end the negative trend of the fans by explaining why the goal was disallowed. In 2019, a rule change was made that players are no longer allowed to enter the opponent’s wall. So Weiser broke the rules and was rightly called back, Zeigler made clear to Werder fans with his explanation. It came to the announcer on Friday evening at the Fair Play Award.

Zeigler was awarded the prize around the 0-1 lost home match against FC Augsburg. “It was an important game in which everything was negatively concentrated on the referee”, Zeigler looked back on the moment in question. “We still needed a good half to get a result from the derby. I thought the latter was more important. I wanted the mood to turn positive.” The duel with HSV was eventually lost 0-2, but Bremen did get promoted, but the rival was unable to do so.