Tennis balls rained on the Bundesliga on Saturday as Bayer Leverkusen consolidated top spot by beating Heidenheim 2-1.
Jeremie Frimpong and Amine Adli scored for Xabi Alonso’s team to move eight points clear of Bayern Munich before the defending champion’s match at Bochum on Sunday.
But none of Saturday’s games escaped fans’ wrath with the German football league for its controversial plan to sell a stake in the Bundesliga’s media rights income to an outside investor.
Supporters threw tennis balls onto the field across four of the afternoon’s five games, forcing interruptions and delays. The first half of Stuttgart’s game at Darmstadt took 70 minutes to complete instead of the usual 45 plus stoppage time.
In Heidenheim, both sets of fans used whistles to drown out the referee’s whistle on the field, while displaying giant banners decrying the soccer league’s planned new investor deal.
In the second division earlier, two remote-controlled vehicles carrying smoke bombs caused a brief delay to Hamburger SV’s game at Rostock, which was delayed again later when tennis balls were thrown on the field.
The protests follow similar actions during Friday’s match and continue the disruptions that also plagued last weekend’s games.
Borussia Dortmund 1-1 Wolfsburg
Borussia Dortmund was held by Wolfsburg to 1-1 for a result that suited neither team.
The visitors went ahead early when Koen Casteel’s effort to clear Marco Reus’ cross rebounded in off Niclas Füllkrug’s shin.
Wolfsburg substitute Yannick Gerhardt equalized in the 64th to earn them a point, though it might not be enough for coach Niko Kovač to keep his job.
Dortmund remained fourth but Leipzig could close the four-point gap later against visiting Borussia Mönchengladbach.
Dortmund was without Sébastien Haller, who was given a hero’s reception on Thursday upon his return from helping Ivory Coast win the Africa Cup of Nations. The club said on Friday that Haller returned with a re-occurrence of the ankle injury that kept him out of Ivory Coast’s opening games and he will remain out for “several weeks.”
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