Ich Pfeife!

What a football referee experiences in amateur leagues is not the big show; it’s real life. Here, the baker plays against the chimney sweep, and after the final whistle, there’s a crate of beer waiting. Authentic and full of irony, Christoph Schröder offers a completely different perspective on our number one national sport.

As an amateur referee, Christoph Schröder stands on drafty village sports fields weekend after weekend, enduring insults. He is dismissed as a pompous fool, as blind and a failure. Yet, in his actual life, he is a literary critic. What kind of pastime is it, whose highest goal is to avoid drawing attention? What kind of person chooses the hobby of being a football referee and then sticks with it for years and decades? Christoph Schröder shares quirky, fascinating, and touching stories about strange rituals, absurd rules, slanted sports fields, and the beauty of true football.