Dr. Markus Merk: God forgives, Schalke never do. Quite a few Schalke supporters blame the referee from Kaiserslautern for the fact that “their” Schalke ended the 2001 title race only as “champions of hearts”.
In their view, Merk allowed so much stoppage time in HSV versus Bayern that Munich still had enough time to score the equaliser that mattered. They especially resented the decisive indirect free-kick awarded for Tomas Ujfaluši’s back-pass to HSV keeper Matthias Schober – a Schalke youth product. For ten years, Merk stayed away from the Schalke arena.
When he returned as a TV pundit in 2011, he was greeted with whistles, beer showers and thrown objects. Some idiots on Facebook demanded a lifetime stadium ban for him.
