Referee with a heart

This referee story is enough to make you cry

A soccer referee becomes a playmaker: The fact that the renowned charity kick SV Ried - SK Vorwärts Steyr will take place in Maria Neustift on Wednesday evening from 6.15 pm after a drama for a young family is solely due to the big heart of an amateur referee . . . 

A referee calls a coach and lets him in on his "match plan": "I'd need you for a game. But there's no money inside . . . "

It may even sound a bit disreputable, but it is perhaps the best referee story of the year. At the center: Klaus Hintersonnleitner! 34th Behamberger. Employee. In his life, he himself has been shaken by strokes of fate such as the early death of his sister and cancer. Nevertheless, he has been on the Upper Austrian soccer pitches with his whistle since 2010. At the beginning of May, he learned of another drama. The cardiac death of a 37-year-old who had fatally collapsed next to his young children and left his family with a minus in their bank account due to investments.

"At first I wanted to donate!"

"I didn't know him, but his widow was thinking about donating 100 or 200 euros," says Hintersonnleitner. He then had an idea of how to raise more money. With a charity game! So he called Ried's amateur coach Julian Baumgartner. "I had gotten to know him as a very pleasant person at matches," says the referee.

Ried immediately says YES!
He continued: "I asked whether a game was conceivable for Ried and he said that he would immediately bring it up internally." One thing led to another. When Ried asked for a reasonably good or attractive opponent, the referee contacted Steyr sports director Gerald Perzy

The result: SV Ried - SK Vorwärts will take place in Maria Neustift on Wednesday from 6.15 pm as a charity event, with the net proceeds going to the aforementioned family. Like both clubs, the referee team will also take part in the 2 x 30-minute kick-off for free. Even if Hintersonnleitner himself will not be whistling. Reason: a torn cruciate ligament!