Bundesliga players Nils Petersen and Anton Stach officiated a local league match on Saturday between Nierstein and Mommenheim near Frankfurt.
The match was an initiative of the German Federation for the game under the slogan (The Year of Referee), which aims to shed light on the difficulties that referees sometimes face.
The campaign aims to encourage young people to practice arbitration, after the decrease in the number of referees in the past years due to verbal and physical abuse.
Mainz midfielder Stach managed the first half of the match, while Freiburg striker Petersen managed the second half.
Both players did not face many problems in the match, which ended with a big victory for Nerstein 6-0, in the presence of about 1,100 spectators, and they did not show yellow cards.
Deniz Aitken, one of the (Bundesliga) referees, was in the stands to watch the match.
“We want to draw attention to the fact that we have lost many referees and that there are many matches that could be played completely without referees,” Ronnie Zimmermann, vice president of the German Amateur Football Association, told reporters.
He added: All clubs and federations must discuss this issue and understand that we need referees and we need to treat them well.
