Jude Bellingham has been fined €40,000 (£33,970) by the German Football Association (DFB) for comments about the referee Felix Zwayer after Borussia Dortmund’s Bundesliga defeat by Bayern Munich.
The England international has been charged with “unsportsmanlike behaviour” and has accepted his punishment. Bellingham, 18, questioned the appointment of Zwayer, who was banned for six months in 2005 after becoming embroiled in a match-fixing scandal, after some controversial decisions in his side’s 3-2 loss.
Zwayer turned down Dortmund’s appeals for a penalty and later awarded Bayern a spot-kick after Mats Hummels was deemed to have handled.
A DFB statement read: “The sports court of the German Football Association (DFB) fined Jude Bellingham with a fine of €40,000 in single judge proceedings after the DFB control committee had brought charges for unsportsmanlike behaviour.
“The player of the Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund has already agreed to the judgment, the judgment is now final. After the Bundesliga match against Bayern Munich on Saturday, Bellingham said in a TV interview about referee Felix Zwayer: ‘You give a referee who has already match-fixing the biggest game in Germany. What do you expect?’. As a result, he had questioned the referee’s impartiality and ultimately denied it.”
Robert Lewandowski converted Bayern’s 77th-minute penalty to clinch a 3-2 win at Signal Iduna Park, which lifted them four points clear of Dortmund at the top.
