Soccer-Fans opposing Bundesliga investor use tennis balls to disrupt games

BERLIN, Feb 17 (Reuters) – German fans, protesting over a planned private investment in the Bundesliga, interrupted play in several matches on Saturday, throwing tennis balls, chocolate and candy on to the pitches.

Fans across the country have been unhappy for months over a planned sale of a stake in the Bundesliga’s media rights company to an outside investor and have staged protests for weeks.

In four of the five matches on Saturday, play was interrupted because of the protests, and the referees in both the Hoffenheim-Union Berlin match and Mainz 05 v Augsburg briefly sent teams to the changing rooms.

Play resumed in both stadiums as it did in the VfL Wolfsburg-Borussia Dortmund match which was repeatedly stopped to allow stadium staff to clear the pitch.

In December, Germany’s first and second tier soccer clubs voted in favour of letting a financial investor take a stake of the German Football League’s (DFL) media arm in a deal valued at between 900 million and 1 billion euros. (Reporting by Karolos Grohmann, editing by Ed Osmond)

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