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At first Heiko Vogel's verbal dropouts only concerned the West German Football Association, now all of Football Germany is talking about it.
The sentence "Women have no business on the football field" to referee Vanessa Arlt, which Gladbach's U23 coach admitted on Tuesday evening, is no longer just a topic for regional associations and sports courts, but also for DFB President Fritz Keller, national coach Martina Voss -Tecklenburg and the German national players.
Vogel's misstep, which resulted in six women's training sessions as a result of a court order, sparked a debate about the role of women in football.
"That this still happens today actually shows how little accepted women still are in some cases in the male-dominated world of football," said Voss-Tecklenburg on Bayerischer Rundfunk.
Your players around captain Alexandra Popp had already spoken at the weekend and described Vogel's statements as "insulting and discriminatory".
"Emotional outburst"
Vogel apologized extensively on Tuesday.
When almost everyone else had said something, Vogel let it be known through his club that he “regretted his behavior very much.
After my dismissal, I said in an emotional outburst that women do not belong on the football field.
That was stupid, that was unsporting and it was discriminatory. "
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But the open letter had already had an effect.
If the German Football Association initially responded with a statement from Vice President Hannelore Ratzeburg, on Monday evening association boss Keller suddenly sat in a desk with Popp and goalkeeper Almuth Schult.
“It was a valuable and open exchange about which stones are being put in the way of our female soccer players.
Some of them are still massively structurally disadvantaged, ”said Keller.
This is "not acceptable".
Horrified: Alexandra Popp (left) and Almuth Schult
Source: picture alliance / SvenSimon
It is the combination of the verbal attack and the following questionable edition that angered the national players.
“As women, we asked ourselves: For whom is it actually the greater punishment?” Said Voss-Tecklenburg.
The 53-year-old hopes for a discussion that is “helpful” and “at the same time terrifying, that we still have to hold it”.
Popp and Co. had expressed themselves even more clearly: "This judgment discriminates against all women in sport and especially in football." Werder President Hubertus Hess-Grunewald also expressed great incomprehension about the sanction.
"That in this judgment, as a kind of reparation, the requirement to train the women's or girls' teams actually appears - at first I was amazed and then stunned," said Hess-Grunewald to the "Weser-Kurier".
For him it was “foreseeable” that “the case could have such an external impact”.
"Thought pattern"
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The presidium of the WDFV ordered “a review of the judgment” at the weekend.
Vice President Gundolf Walaschewski called for a "complete processing and examination" of the events at the regional league game, which had already taken place at the end of January.
"The impossible statement and the subsequent incomprehensible 'punishment' of leading the training of a women's team are only an expression in football, unfortunately, even today, much too widespread thought pattern," said DFB boss Keller.
He assured the players around Popp of his "full support".
Vogel said in an interview published by his club: “My statement is absolutely unjustifiable and, above all, does not correspond to my personal attitude.” He offered the training courses to “follow up with his apology”, but that was “totally wrong come over ".
He still wants to lead the units "because it is close to my heart".
But "of course only if the players want it too".