Borussia Dortmund will be cooperating with Rheinmetall, a company that profits from war and military violence. What is the ethical principle still worth in sport?
Until now, it was just a question of taste whether you should call a centre forward a bomber, his shots on goal projectiles or his team a troop. And when Uwe Seeler called out to an old friend that he was “a grenade in human terms”, it was a strange compliment, but one that was endearing in a very Uwe Seeler way. Verbal militarism has always had a place in football. When the German national team won the World Cup in Brazil in 2014 with cultivated Jogi Löw football, media all over the world wrote “The German tanks are rolling again” and meant it in a positive way. A well-worn international football metaphor.