St Pauli have welcomed the decision to allow spectators into their home game against Werder Bremen next weekend after their punishment for crowd trouble was delayed until next season.
The Hamburg-based club must play their first match of the 2011/12 campaign over 35 miles away from the city with a reduced number of 12,500 home spectators permitted to attend after their game with Schalke a fortnight ago was abandoned. A plastic mug which was thrown from the stands struck one of the linesmen, forcing the game to be called off.
St Pauli were initially ordered to play their next home match behind closed doors, but their second appeal heard by the German Football Association (DFB) was altered yesterday, enabling the northern Germany derby next weekend to go ahead with a sell-out crowd at the Millerntor Stadion.
We are really delighted to be able to play our last two home games of the season with the support of our fans.
Holger Stanislawski, St. Pauli coach.
"Huge respect to the DFB's disciplinary committee and the DFB's sporting tribunal - that is what you call fair play," said St Pauli coach Holger Stanislawski on his club's website. "From a sporting point of view, we are really delighted to be able to play our last two home games of the season with the support of our fans."
St Pauli's director of sport Helmut Schulte, who was at yesterday's hearing in Frankfurt, accepted the new verdict.
"The judgement is better than the previous one," he said. "It does not interfere with the current season and our fans will not be punished with exclusion."
Having the fans in the stadium for their last remaining home games will come as a major boost to St Pauli, who are currently inside the bottom two, two points adrift of safety with five games of the season remaining.