Her contribution was only online for a short time, but with a post on X, the Green Party politician Göring-Eckardt received massive criticism. She had referred to the skin color of the players in the national team. She has since apologized.
The Green Party politician and deputy president of the Bundestag, Katrin Göring-Eckardt, has provoked severe criticism with a post she published on the short message service X. In it, she referred to the skin color of the players of the German national football team. After numerous negative reactions and accusations that she had made racist comments, Göring-Eckardt deleted the post and apologized for her wording.
The politician published her post after the 2-0 victory of the national team against Hungary at the European ChampionshipShe wrote: “This team is really great. Just imagine if there were only white German players.”
Massive critical reactions
The reactions followed promptly. Numerous users expressed clear criticism of Göring-Eckardt’s lines – including the deputy party leader of the FDP, Wolfgang Kubicki. “I find it really worrying when people in Germany are judged by the color of their skin. My colleague should delete this text quickly,” he wrote, also on X.
Extremism researcher, author and psychologist Ahmad Mansour also denounced the Green politician’s post: “Anyone who brings up the skin colour of the players on the German national team is practicing racism, regardless of the motivation behind it.”
Göring-Eckardt refers to survey for ARD documentary
Barely four hours after Göring-Eckardt published the controversial post, she deleted it and apologized for her choice of words. Attaching a photo and quote from national player Jonathan Tah to the new post, she referred to the ARD documentary “Unity and Justice and Diversity – The national team between racism and identification”.
“I am proud of this team”
As part of this documentation, a survey of infratest dimap in April on behalf of the WDR magazine “Sport inside” In the survey, 21 percent of participants said that they would prefer it if more white players were playing in the German national team. 65 percent of respondents did not agree with this statement.
National coach Julian Nagelsmann reacted to the survey with drastic words: “I hope I never have to read such a shitty survey again.” He was shocked that such questions were being asked and that people were answering them.
In her “apology post,” Göring-Eckardt wrote that she too was upset about the results of this survey. “I am proud of this team and hope that we can convince the 21 percent as well,” said the Green politician.