Schalke celebrate their Europa League win over Nice. VALERY HACHE/AFP/Getty Images

Schalke's director of sport Christian Heidel said he was "lost for words" by the performance of the officials in his side's 1-0 win over Nice in the Europa League on Thursday.

Baba Rahman's late goal earned the Royal Blues only their second win of the season, after succeeding also in the first round of the DFB Pokal, but Heidel was unhappy that his side were not given a penalty earlier in the match.

Former Borussia Monchengladbach, Bayern Munich and Wolfsburg defender Dante appeared to foul Alessandro Schopf in the penalty area just a few minutes before half-time, but referee Alberto Mallenco waved play on.

"Nowadays, you practically need a double-decker bus to bring all the referees to the stadium, there are so many of them, and then they don't even see a handball, a foul and give decisions practically exclusively against us in the first half," Heidel told Sky Deutschland.

"I'm lost for words."

Meanwhile, Schalke have sent an amateur club 50 crates of beer by means of an apology after the knock-on effect of their hiring of Markus Weinzierl this summer saw Wedeler TSV without a coach at the start of the season.

Schalke drafted in Weinzierl from Augsburg, who in turn took Dirk Schuster from Darmstadt.

Norbert Meier took Schuster's place, leaving Arminia Bielefeld needing a new coach, who became Rudiger Rehm of Sonnenhof Grossaspach.

They appointed SV Eichede's Oliver Zapel, who then lured Jorn Grosskopf from Wedeler TSV, leaving them without a coach just a few weeks after they had appointed Grosskopf, albeit with a clause in his contract permitting him to leave for a higher-ranked club.

"I sent an email to Christian Heidel asking him either to send us 50 crates of beer or organise a friendly with us," Wedeler director of sport Franck Ockens said in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper.

"It was meant as a means of compensation."

According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine, those 50 crates of beer have been delivered to the northern Germany club, who have picked up just seven points from their first six games of the season in the Oberliga Hamburg.