Freiburg coach
Streich is concerned about increasing anti-Semitism
Freiburg’s coach Christian Streich is concerned about increasing anti-Semitism in society. photo
© Tom Weller/dpa
The SC Freiburg coach has been a critical spirit in football – and beyond – for years. At an awards ceremony, Christian Streich recently expressed his lack of understanding about politicians’ statements.
“When I hear that politicians from the so-called German center talk about imported anti-Semitism, then it’s more than irresponsible, it’s unbelievable,” said the 58-year-old after receiving the Julius Hirsch Prize in Berlin. “This suggests that the Muslim people who live with us simply have to leave the country. Then we would no longer have anti-Semitism. If such sayings come from the center, then you know where we are. And that is highly unacceptable and dangerous. That makes you worry.”
On Monday evening, Streich received the honorary prize of the award, which has been presented since 2005 and was named after the former Jewish national player Hirsch, who was murdered in Auschwitz in 1943. Actor Matthias Brandt, who gave the laudatory speech, called Streich a “decent person”
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The long-time Freiburg coach often takes a stand on social and political issues off the pitch. Football is such a big game that it doesn’t matter whether someone is green, white or black and it doesn’t matter what language they speak. “But it’s no longer enough to say we play football. Too much has happened for that. Things have gone in a direction in which, 80 years after Auschwitz, you have to say: We need enlightenment, we need education. In that direction right direction,” said Streich.
Streich showed his team Robert Habeck’s video in which the economics minister explains Germany’s relationship with Israel and the protection of Jewish fellow citizens in Germany. “The speech was so extraordinary because it organized things. In relatively simple language. And that’s important because not everyone understands every foreign word,” said Streich, who also explained missing foreign words to his players, “because not everyone is young anymore People know what the Holocaust is.”