The ZDF sports commentator Béla Réthy is generally not known for his silence.
At the European Championship game between Denmark and Finland last Saturday, however, he was silent.
Because what happened on the square did not need any words.
Danish player Christian Eriksen had collapsed and had to be revived.
It was a matter of life and death.
It wasn't about who wins this game.
It was about hope and fear, about sympathy shown by the players, viewers and reporters, not about voyeurism.
But the federal chairman of the German Association of Journalists, Frank Überall, who joins in too often and too quickly when outrage about supposedly objectionable things is loud, immediately held it up to ZDF. Its sports director Thomas Fuhrmann stated that one had "always found the right pitch". The director, who was responsible for the images centrally delivered to the broadcasters via the European football association UEFA, also claimed that he had handled the camera settings appropriately.
Media scientist Christoph Bertling from the Sports University in Cologne found that by and large, but criticized a certain close-up. Communication scientist Jana Wiske from the Ansbach University of Applied Sciences highlighted both Béla Réthy's silence and the work of the rest of the ZDF team as positive: “It was about a person's life, no longer about football.” So some people obviously looked more closely.
In the event of such a tragic incident, broadcasters and journalists are under special observation and responsible not only for their own sake, but also to a certain extent as representatives of the European football association UEFA.
In other words, the organization that is responsible for hosting the games and pushed through the EM despite the pandemic with spectators in the stadium across Europe.
Which could not prevent the Russian government from refusing accreditation to the ARD sports expert Robert Kempe and only allowing him into the country after protests.
Which left the teams of Denmark and Finland to decide whether the game should continue, and not decided to set a new date.
That would not only have been good for the shocked players.
What was it called again?
"It was no longer about football." It's about football, even the most die-hard fans know that, at best at the European Championship and even more at the upcoming World Cup in Qatar.
First and foremost, it is about power, money and the need for recognition, about asserting interests against all reason and devoid of any moral responsibility.
If it were different, they wouldn't be playing in the stadiums in front of thousands and would not be kicked in Qatar.
But it will.
Because the joy of this sport outweighs the concerns, at the latest when the referee whistles for the game of his “own” team.
If you want to break with it, you must not tune in.
A reporter's silence, on the other hand, is only appropriate.