A former top referee in Germany was awarded 48,500 euros ($52,800) in compensation after a court found he was discriminated against when he was no longer considered for games because of his age. The court in Frankfurt found the 49-year-old Manuel Gräfe, who officiated 289 Bundesliga games from 2004 through 2021, had been disadvantaged by the German federation’s practice of not considering referees over the age of 47. The court said the federation, known as the DFB, was not justified in imposing a blanket restriction on older referees at the elite level without scientific evidence or using more individual measures like performance tests. However, the court rejected a claim for damages including lost earnings, ruling that Gräfe had not provided evidence to show that he would still have been selected for games if the age limit had not been in place.
FIFA decided in 2014 to abolish its age limit for referees in international games. However, FIFA rules say referees over 45 can still be subject to “additional technical assessments as well as specific medical examinations and fitness testing on a case-by-case basis.” (Source: AP)
Gräfe was forced to end his Bundesliga career last year after 289 appearances due to age restrictions. He had sued the DFB, which he had publicly criticized several times in recent months, for damages of 190,000 euros. However, the primary goal of the lawsuit was “to confirm that age was the reason used by DFB to get rid of me,” Gräfe emphasized during the hearing on November 16. Although the DFB denied it, there is “enough evidence” to assume an age limit, said the judge. The court did not accept the demand for the amount called by Gräfe (190,000 euros) because the referee would have had “no guarantee of a certain number of match appointments” even if he had continued to referee on the Bundesliga list. “The amount is in reasonable proportion to the damage suffered,” said Judge Wolf. Even if there is no official age limit in the DFB rules, there are “enough indications” that this is practiced in reality, the reasoning for the judgment said: “The age of the defendant was a contributing factor. It does not have to have been the sole cause, but it is one of several.”
One day before the court ruling, former World Cup referee Felix Brych announced that he would like to continue refereeing in the Bundesliga at the age of 48, after this summer. The age limit is not stipulated in the DFB statutes but has been common practice for many years in Germany. DFB referee chief Fröhlich recently brought up a softening of the conversation, saying that the 47 years should only be a point of reference. (Source: SZ)