Appearance under a false name
It’s a small crime story. With good and bad. But drawing the line between good and bose is not easy in this case. Michael kohler is at any rate only coincidentally at the scene of the action on this mild march sunday, as he will later stress. It is a kind of blob witness that provides relevant information. In fact, it is the decisive clue that helps to clarify the facts of the case. The one who brings the case to light in the first place.
"It was almost fraud," says kohler – and now, he complains, the "victim is being stylized as the perpetrator. Well, he himself is not directly the "victim," but someone else has suffered: SV kleinochsenfurt. But since kohler sees himself as an advocate for the clubs in his function as head of the playing group at the bavarian fubball association, he is sure that he has served the just cause.
Kohler is on 4. March this year heib on fubball. After three months, the winter break comes to an end this weekend on the fubball fields of lower franconia. And like many others, he is drawn to the open air. He explains why he came to butthard of all places: "it was the closest I could get to watching a soccer game on that sunday."From his home in kirchheim, it is less than ten kilometers on the main road, and so he decides to go to the district league match between SV butthard and table leaders kickers wurzburg II.
Kohler arrives at the pitch a few minutes early, just in time to witness the end of the pre-match between butthard II and SV kleinochsenfurt (2:1). A young man he spots there in the crowd with others looks familiar to kohler, even though he hasn’t seen him at the sports field "for months". He is one of the youngsters who play in a junior team in which butthard players also play. Kohler holds a position as trainer in this JFG.
Kohler is surprised when he sees his protege. He wants to know what he is doing here. He was just playing along, he gets the answer. How could something like this happen, kohler thinks to himself, since the player’s passport is in his care at home?. He gets suspicious and goes into the referee’s booth to check the score sheet. The youth is not noted on it. Behind the number 12 is instead another name. Now it becomes clear to kohler: something is wrong here. During halftime of the district league match, he confronts SV butthard’s match director, klaus seubert, with his investigations. Seubert plays it cool. "Go ahead!"He replies when kohler tells him he will report the case to the district sports court.
On the way home, kohler receives a call on his cell phone. The young man who was playing under a false name has obviously come to his senses. He asks kohler to refrain from pressing charges. But it is too late. At the sports field, he says, he was still trying to "build bridges" for the club’s officials. With some goodwill, it might have been possible to straighten out the matter.
Now it’s an official offense, and kohler has no choice but to report it to the sports court – otherwise he might be tried himself. At home, he realizes that the player is only seventeen years old and belongs to the younger U19 age group. So even under his real name he was not allowed to play in an active team as a rule. This strengthens kohler in his intention to bring the case before the district sports court.
On 29. March, the three-headed chamber chaired by klaus ullrich pronounces its verdict: SV butthard is stripped of the victory it won against kleinochsenfurt (2:1) and six further points; supervisor andre K., who is said to have given the green light for the use of the player at the time, must leave his post at the club until april 2013; the player himself gets off with a lighter punishment: the seventeen-year-old, victim and perpetrator alike, is sentenced to 5 months in prison. May suspended.
However, this is not the end of the matter. The association wants to appeal against the ruling, as klaus seubert explains on request. "Nine points deducted, that’s heavy," he says. Otherwise, he would prefer not to say anything at all, so as not to influence the pending proceedings. Seubert then says quite a lot, not about the matter itself, but about michael kohler, whom he accuses of a troubled relationship with SV butthard. "He wants to give us one. He wants his kirchheimers to stand in front of butthard. It is well known that he has us on the latte. That is completely boses blood."
In this specific case, kohler is accused by butthard of having learned of the intended use of the underage player a day in advance and still letting the club walk into the open. In fact, the young man had announced his plan on the internet page of the social network "facebook", kohler also freely admits to have known about it. But he wants the whole thing to be a joke, a "laughing stock". "The passport is with me. It can’t be," he thought.
The next day he realizes what can be in fubball. For some in butthard kohler is now the bose – he doesn’t want to and can’t understand that. "I didn’t make the mistake," he says. A culprit has been found, but the story will not end happily.