The home game between 1. FSV Mainz 05 and Union Berlin was interrupted for about six minutes in the first half because traveling Union Berlin fans had thrown tennis balls onto the field, among other things. The reason for the protests was the scheduling of the match on a Sunday, a situation that Union Berlin is indeed frequently subjected to.
Between the 17th and 23rd minutes, the players in the Bundesliga match between 1. FSV Mainz 05 and 1. FC Union Berlin were given an unexpected breather. Tennis balls had flown onto the field from the visitors’ section of Mainz’s Mewa Arena, prompting referee Florian Exner to abruptly halt the match with the score at 0-0.
Union fans resorted to this tactic to protest the kickoff time of 7:30 p.m. on Sunday evening, which was extremely inconvenient for the traveling supporters. The Köpenick fans expressed their anger on posters, which they held aloft in their section during the six-minute interruption.
“Season 25/26: 7,000 km on Sundays,” “Your scheduling remains a farce!” and “Make kickoff times fair” read the banners, from the direction of which new objects kept flying onto the field after the balls were cleared. Among other things, these included wristwatches and a volleyball bearing the inscription “pro 15:30”—a call for a more fan-friendly kickoff time.
Six Berlin away trips on Sundays
The Mainz stadium is more than 460 kilometers away as the crow flies from Berlin’s home ground, the Stadion An der Alten Försterei. The driving distance between the two venues is nearly 600 kilometers—and that’s one way.
The match in Mainz was actually already the ninth Sunday game that Union had to play this season—and the sixth away. Before the Mainz game, Union traveled on Sundays to Freiburg, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Dortmund, and to FC St. Pauli in Hamburg.
Freiburg faces a record number of Sunday matches in 2025/26
Only four teams played more Sunday matches, though three of them represented the Bundesliga in the Europa League or Conference League and play on Sundays during European competition weeks due to Thursday matches in those tournaments: Mainz, VfB Stuttgart, and SC Freiburg. The Sunday “leader” among the clubs not competing in Europe was FC St. Pauli with ten matches, seven of which were away games.
SC Freiburg fans were particularly hard hit by this rule this season, as their team played a whopping 20 of its 33 matches so far on a Sunday—ten of them on the road. Never before has a team had to play so often on Sundays in a single season. Bayer Leverkusen, on the other hand, represents the absolute opposite: only two Sunday games, neither of them away.