Wolfsburg’s Dieter Hecking rails against ‘abysmal’ refereeing in Bayer Leverkusen loss: “Not up to Bundesliga standards!”
Wolfsburg’s Dieter Hecking rails against ‘abysmal’ refereeing in Bayer Leverkusen loss: “Not up to Bundesliga standards! ” Wolfsburg – already in serious trouble before the March 2026 international break – are now in worse shape after seeing their Bundesliga winless streak extended to 11 matches on Saturday afternoon. The German Wolves managed to rush out to a 1-3 lead against heavily favored hosts Bayer Leverkusen on matchday 28, but conceded five unanswered goals in what ultimately ended as a 6-3 defeat.
Newly hired Wolfsburg head coach Dieter Hecking criticized referee Martin Petersen and the Bundesliga VAR team officiating the match heavily afterwards. While listing the match officiating as the “ third reason ” for the defeat in his post-match interview with Sky Germany, Hecking was less apt to contain himself at the post match press conference. Wolfsburg’s Dieter Hecking rails against the refereeing “ The referee’s performance today simply wasn’t up to Bundesliga standards, ” Hecking told Sky .
“ The penalty [leading to the 1-1] stood [even though it was soft] and he initially let play continue on our [1-3] penalty [in the 38th minute]. “ Then there’s an elbow check by Tapsoba, for which he should have been sent off with a yellow-red card, ” Hecking continued. “ Incidentally, that player then scored the 4-3.
Then, before the 4-3, we had a Leverkusen player who simply ran into [Denis] Vavro and clearly rammed him. That wasn’t penalized by VAR. “ A player is on the field who shouldn’t be there anymore with the score at 1-3, ” Hecking – reemphasizing the Tapsoba matter – concluded.
“ That’s also one of the stories of this game. We believe we weren’t refereed well in three or four situations today. ” “ We got anther penalty awarded against us [on the 3-3] in the 53rd-minute, ” Hecking went on to say in his opening statement at the post-match press conference.