In a huge blow for all fans of foam being dispensed from pressurised canisters, the German football federation (DFB) have ruled that their referees will be prohibited from using free-kick vanishing spray during Bundesliga games.
The original plan was to begin using the spray on the weekend of October 18, but the DFB have nixed the plan after tests carried out by a prominent German product safety organisation found that the vanishing spray falls foul of several of the country's stringent safety regulations.
According to a report published in Bild, the good people at Technischer Überwachungs-Verein (TÜV) have recommended that referees be banned from using the spray after it tested positive for "hormonally active" chemical compounds called parabens. Rest assured, there's plenty more where that came from! TÜV also drew attention to the fact that the DFB would be unable to use the spray canisters by law as they haven't been approved or manufactured in the EU -- being produced in Argentina as it is.
As well as the pesky parabens, TÜV's safety auditors also found that the foam is flammable enough to require labelling as such, with its greenhouse gas content also sufficiently high as for the packaging to require the requisite warning symbol. But wait, there's even more! As if things weren't exhilarating enough already, the text and usage directions on the spray canisters and their outer packaging is not in German -- another statutory requirement.
In short, any referee that uses the spray during a Bundesliga game is liable to receive a fine and also be subject to legal proceedings. Now if you'll excuse us, we need to take a moment to cool off after all that excitement.
But never fear, the federation said it would look into alternative sprays.
"Regardless, we have been in contact already for weeks with other suppliers to find an alternative to the costly import from Argentina,'' said Lutz Michael Froehlich, the chief of the federation's department of referees. "We are sure we are going to find a solution that will not be faulty."