Einde van Duits gefluim in zicht?

BERLIN, June 19 (Reuters) - German footballers responded angrily on Tuesday to suggestions that spitting and clearing their nostrils on the pitch should be banned because it had a bad influence on children. "We can't carry a packet of hankies on the pitch! I'll never give up spitting -- and the others won't either," Kaislerslautern midfielder Mario Basler told Bild newspaper. Basler was responding to a suggestion by Willi Lemke, one-time Werder Bremen coach and now education minister in the city, that players should stop spitting during matches as schoolchildren were picking up the habit. "This is a contact sport, not a women's coffee morning. If they try to stop us spitting on the pitch, we can just give up the game," said an unrepentant Basler, who was backed by fellow professionals and coaches. "A ban would be absolutely ridiculous," said Bayern Munich's Hasan Salihamidzic, while TSV 1860 Munich coach Werner Lorant said a ban would be "unrealistic and total nonsense." Volker Roth, head of the German Football Association's refereeing panel, said the practice was disgusting. "Let no one tell me this is medically necessary. It's purely a question of upbringing," Roth said. However, Roth did not want referees to be given the power to punish players for their bad manners. "No thanks. Then TV will show us when it happens behind our backs and try to prove to us what we missed," he said, adding that referees run more than many players and he had never seen a referee clearing his nose. The German football association (DFB) said it had received letters from fans complaining about spitting, and the number of complaints had increased with more television coverage of the game. "But neither the DFB or FIFA is going to call for handkerchief control. There will be no appeal to make them stop," said DFB press spokesman, Wolfgang Niersbach.