DUISBURG, July 3 (Reuters) - Germany midfielder Torsten Frings was in the middle of a heated debate between German and Italian media on Monday over his role in a quarter-final punch-up which could lead to a World Cup ban for him.
Frings was among those, including FIFA officials and the
referee, who were caught up in chaotic punching and kicking at
the end of the quarter-final tie between Germany and Argentina
on Friday which the hosts won on penalties.
Television executives from Italy, who next meet Germany in
the semi-final in Dortmund on Tuesday, said they had found
evidence that Frings threw a punch at Argentina forward Julio
Ricardo Cruz in the fracas.
Their film prompted a FIFA investigation to be held later on
Monday and that sparked indignation in some German media which
said the Italians were simply trying to get one of the best home
players suspended for the match.
'Italians want Frings suspended,' read the page one headline
in Germany's best-selling
Bild daily on Monday. 'Are they so
afraid of us?'
An Italian FA spokesman said it had played no part in the
process and Cruz was quoted as saying in the Italian sports
daily, the
Gazzetta dello Sport: 'No, I didn't receive any
punch, or at least I didn't feel one.'
FIFA initially said that it was taking no action against any
Germany player but later said that 'following new evidence
coming to light' it was investigating Frings, who had been
considered a certain starter for Tuesday's semi-final.
'The credit goes to our group working in Munich,' Giovanni
Bruno, director of Sky Sport told the Italian news agency ANSA.
'It is logical that when there is a brawl you try to find
who was involved. With hours of broadcasting to fill, it is
quite normal that you look to find the details. After watching
the images many times, the guys realised there was Frings's
punch and they put it on air,' said Bruno.
'At the start it passed unobserved, then German television
station ZDF found out that we were in possession of these images
and they asked for them and broadcast them.
'After that all the television stations took our pictures.
At that point FIFA asked for the cassette with those pictures,'
he added.
A still image of Frings's outstretched arm was also
published in the Italian newspaper
La Repubblica and on Monday
the paper wrote that their picture had alerted FIFA.
'On Saturday, FIFA saw the images from the international
broadcast but after they had seen the pictures published by
Repubblica, that we had taken from Sky (Italia), FIFA asked the
broadcaster to provide the video... there was no activity from
our Football Federation,' the paper wrote.
Frings has protested his innocence.
'I found myself in a crowd of people where everyone was
hitting out wildly,' he told German newspaper
Kreiszeitung Syke.
'I took two punches myself. I put out my hands to protect
myself, that was all,' he said.
Many German newspapers had relatively sober accounts of the
FIFA investigation into Frings, reporting what the newly emerged
pictures show and Frings's denial that he was an active
participant in the melee at the end of the match.
But some dailies, such as best-selling
Bild, emphasised to
their readers that the investigation which had already been
completed was reopened after at the urging of Italian media.
Argentina defender Leandro Cufre and forward Maxi Rodriguez
are also being investigated by FIFA for their role in the
fracas.
