Protest continues in regional league: BVB halts Essen’s return to professional football

Saturday 5 June 2021

Intercept in the regional league is running
BVB halts Essen return to professional football

The last day of the Western Regional League is an exciting movie. After 45 minutes, Rot-Weiß Essen appears to be on his way back to professional football, but 90 minutes later Borussia Dortmund’s U23 team is cheering. A video from the ranks of the Premier League is causing problems – and an appeal is being filed against the final table.

Borussia Dortmund’s under-23 team made the championship in the Western Regional Football League ideal, at least from a sporting point of view, but promotion to the third division and thus professional football cannot yet celebrate. After 2:1 (0:1) at Wuppertaler SV, coach Enrico Maaßen’s side finished the season as leader. It follows traditional Rot Weiss Essen, trailing by three points, who won their last game of the season 2-0 (2-0) over FC Wajberg Beck. But due to objections from title contenders RWE against ratings for Dortmund’s catch-up matches, the Bundesliga club’s reserve Dortmund will first have to wait for the West German Football Association (WDFV) decision expected next week.

After the match, there were other disputes between competitors in promotion. Because, according to an Instagram video by one of the players, Dortmund played the RWE anthem while cheering, Essen’s sporting director Jorn Novak was furious. “It is always said that you have to be a fair loser. I think it is very important to be a fair winner,” Nowak told Reviersport.de: “Celebrating the promotion with our club anthem in the dressing room is an unbeatable arrogance.”

In addition, Nowak was disturbed by a statement from young Dortmund player Lars Ricken, which stated that the BVB went up without professionals. He respects Dortmund’s performance, “but when I read that Dortmund got along without professionals, it broke down,” he said, “I would like to invite Mr. Ricken for coffee, so that I can talk to him about the term “professional” I am very interested in the main courses, courses and jobs that residents follow Dortmund, although they can train in the morning. Maybe we can learn something from this model in the future.”

Essen doubts BVB’s representation

Everything had already been shaken in advance. Dortmunders were placed in quarantine at the beginning of May due to coronavirus cases. Therefore, it is assumed that there were no more than 16 players available. One seems to doubt this representation in Essen. Therefore, there is an appeal against the league match rankings in Strallen (3:1) and Rönghausen (0:0). In addition, the bottom of the table, SV Bergisch Gladbach, was said to have made a similar interception after 1:3 last Tuesday against Dortmund. WDFV did not wish to confirm further details.

However, the showdown with the BVB was also a formidable game regardless of the interception’s success. Because after Kevin Hagmann’s goal from Wuppertal (34), BVB fell 0:1 – and only in second place. Only a Steffen Tigges equaliser (47th place) and a late goal from Ansgar Knauff (89th place) set the stage for a hard-fought win.

Essen, who reached the DFB Cup quarter-finals, had fewer problems. RWE ensured success with two early goals from Daniel Heber (first) and Western Regional League top scorer Simon Engelmann (11) and in the meantime outperformed the live table. But in the end it wasn’t enough to propel BVB out of first place.