At the opening match of the European Football Championship last Friday, a YouTuber disguised himself as the European Championship mascot “Albärt” and smuggled himself into the arena in Fröttmaning, which has been renamed the “Munich Football Arena”. 27-year-old Marvin Wildhage had apparently been preparing the action for months and, among other things, had an Albärt costume made for 5,000 euros.
According to Wildhage, he had forged a parking permit and applied DFB stickers to his car to give himself an official appearance. He had received the employee ID card from a volunteer who had dropped out before the tournament had even started.
Wildhage and two helpers then made their way into the stadium. During the opening ceremony, he danced around the pitch and had his photo taken, including with former national player Mario Gómez. After a while, an official led him into the stadium – then, he says in the video published on YouTube, he thought the event was over. The employee only suggested that he should rest and have something to drink – she obviously thought he was the real mascot too.
Eventually, Wildhage was unmasked. He was noticed because he didn’t know the way to the mascot’s dressing room and was asked several times to take off the “Albärt” head. When he finally did that, he was recognized as a YouTuber – funnily enough, at the exact moment when the real mascot walked past him, to whom Wildhage called out a cheerful “Work colleague! Hey!”
He was then taken to the police detention center. He is now facing charges of trespassing, fraudulently obtaining services and forgery, a police spokesman confirmed. However, the police also stressed that UEFA, or rather the specially founded “UEFA Euro 2024 GmbH” as the organizer of the tournament, is solely responsible for security in the stadium, especially at the entrance, and that officers would only intervene if there were any disturbances.
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The organizer himself confirmed the incident in an official statement: “Three people gained unauthorized access to the football arena Munich.” Now UEFA has “evaluated the situation and initiated the necessary organizational measures.” When asked, a spokesman did not want to specify what kind of measures these are. Wildhage and his helpers were initially expelled from the field and then banned from entering all stadiums of the European Championship. In addition, UEFA is said to have forbidden him from publishing the video of the action and threatened to take action should this happen.
Wildhage did not comply – his 20-minute film had already been viewed more than 800,000 times on his YouTube portal by Monday afternoon. Most of the comments praised the action, but also pointed out that there were apparently serious security flaws.
Wildhage describes himself as a presenter, journalist, film producer and web video producer. In the past, he has attracted attention several times by playing pranks under a false identity. In 2019, for example, he played a prank on another YouTuber when he tricked him with a fictitious agency and a Dieter Bohlen double.
He later sneaked onto the training grounds of the professional football teams Hannover 96 and Hertha BSC Berlin and took part in training, but was exposed after a short time on both occasions. Most recently, he had targeted internet influencers and tabloid media: he teased the former with a fictitious anti-aging cream called “Hydro Hype”, which some online starlets advertised without asking. He slipped several tabloid magazines a photo of the allegedly pregnant Laura Müller, the girlfriend of pop singer Michael Wendler. In reality, this was also a double, but the pictures were published within minutes.