Carlo Ancelotti pays €5,000 for being spat at by a Hertha BSC fan

In case you completely missed this last weekend’s drama, Carlo Ancelotti was spat at by a Hertha BSC fan and then flipped said fan the bird. Unluckily for Ancelotti, it was caught on television in plain view. So, there was an investigation and Bayern Munich have responded.

We regard Carlo Ancelotti's gesture in response to being spat at as an understable emotional reaction.

The DFB panel has accepted this position and will cease its inquiry. However, as an apology for his gesture Carlo Ancelotti will make a donation of 5,000 Euros to the DFB Foundation.

So let me get this straight, Carlo Ancelotti was spat at by a Hertha BSC fan and he gets “fined” €5000? For the Hertha fan, this was in response to an obscene amount of stoppage time that was exceeded by two minutes that saw Bayern score a late equalizer. Emotions, ie anger, are understandably high but that doesn’t change what that fan did. While US law has zero impact in Germany, for many of us it is worth noting that in some circumstances spitting is a form of assault and battery. This is not trivial.

Flipping the bird is the normal, and possibly the most restrained, reaction when life events filed under this subheader happen. That Ancelotti has to bear the brunt of punishment because some assinine fan couldn’t control himself is a gross level of sports icon as role model mentality. These are human beings playing an emotional sport for the entertainment of millions and coming to this kind of conclusion shouldn’t even be a thing that has to happen.