Wednesday June 19, 11 p.m., Stuttgart. Everything seems to be smiling at the Nationalmannschaft, who has just won the second match of his Euro against Hungary (2-0). “For once, the German eleven will not have been eliminated in the first round of this tournament”, even announces with relief the South German Zeitung, recalling the cruel disillusionment suffered by Toni Kroos and his team during their elimination in the first round in Qatar, during the 2022 World Cup.
But it is in the intoxication of the celebrations of the day before that the controversy of the next day is born. “This team is really great. Imagine if there were only white German players,” wrote after the match on X Katrin Göring-Eckardt, environmentalist member of the Bundestag presidency, accompanying her message with several rainbow emojis. The outcry was immediate in the conservative press.
“Evaluating footballers based on their skin color must be what so-called progressivism is all about. Also known as ‘racism’ in other circles,” written in a comment Die Welt.
Katrin Göring-Eckardt’s message also caused a stir within the tripartite coalition in charge in Berlin. Wolfgang Kubicki, both a member of the presidency of the lower house and the FDP, a liberal party also part of the alliance led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, declared that he found “frankly worrying that people in Germany are judged by the color of their skin” in a message relayed by the tabloid Bild.
The environmentalist’s message was quickly deleted and replaced by another. “Deleted my tweet. Sorry for wording it like that. What irritated me was that 21% of Germans thought it would be better if there were more ‘whites’ in the national team. tried to rectify Katrin Göring-Eckardt, by attaching a visual presenting the German defender of Ivorian origin Jonathan Tah, accompanied by a unifying message.
As for the figure cited by the politician, it refers to a recent survey according to which almost one in five Germans would like to see more white players in the national team. A proportion which was shocking, in a country where the far right has experienced uninterrupted progression for several years.
