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Olympic Stadium Announcer Replaced For Supporting Germany

July 1, 2006
https://p.dw.com/p/8hvN

If Germany didn't have enough supporters in the Berlin Olympiastadion for their quarter-final clash with Argentina on Friday. A stadium announcer at the capital's showpiece arena was replaced during the game for encouraging the home fans. FIFA took umbrage to Andreas Wenzel using a break in play to urge the 72,000-strong crowd to get behind the German team.

Wenzel, a veteran announcer for the German national team's games, promptly found himself substituted at the microphone by the local organizing committee.

"This had no place in the balanced neutrality of an announcer," Markus Siegler, a spokesman for world soccer's governing body, said of Wenzel's comments. "It's not acceptable."