The German Football Association (DFB) reports a decline in incidents of violence and discrimination on sports fields in Germany for the second year in a row. In the 2024/2025 season, 829 match abandonments due to violence or discrimination were registered in organized match operations. This is nine percent fewer than in the previous year and represents the lowest level since the end of the coronavirus pandemic four years ago. In relation to the total number of around 1.286 million matches with a completed match report, 0.06% of matches were affected by an abandonment.
In 3,494 matches last season, an incident of violence was recorded via the referees and electronic match reports - a decrease of six percent compared to the previous year. Incidents of discrimination also fell slightly (-3.1%). This is according to the "Situation Report on Amateur Football", which the DFB has surveyed for the eleventh time. The proportion of matches with reported incidents of violence or discrimination fell to 0.43% (2023/2024: 0.45%). This is also the lowest figure since 2021.
Ronny Zimmermann, 1st DFB Vice President Amateurs and Head of the Violence Prevention Working Group, says: "The direction is right, the number of incidents continues to fall, unfortunately only in small steps. That's why all of us in soccer must not let up in our efforts to ensure respectful and friendly interaction on and off the pitch. It remains the case that every single incident is one too many. We would like to call on everyone to continue reporting incidents in the future, especially in cases of discrimination."
Since the 2014/2015 season, the DFB has conducted an annual survey based on referees' match reports to determine the state of amateur soccer in Germany in terms of violence and discrimination. Incidents can be reported to the referee around a match or afterwards to the respective contact point for incidents of violence and discrimination of the responsible regional association. Match abandonments must be recorded anyway so that they can be dealt with by the sports courts.
The number of injured parties fell by five percent overall (from 6,710 to 6,372), particularly among spectators (-13.9%) and referees (-7.0%). There were five percent fewer accused persons overall (from 6,886 to 6,535), with the largest group being players (3,220).
