Hate knows no boundaries: Last weekend, TSV Maccabi Munich had to cancel football games for security reasons. The exact reason has now become known: A children’s soccer coach from an opposing team was threatened on the phone that he should not play against Maccabi Munich.
“We canceled the weekend games for a variety of reasons,” Maccabi sports director Armand Presser told the dpa news agency. “Unfortunately, a situation arose at one of the opposing clubs where a coach was called and massively threatened if he played against us.” At the request of this club, this game, among other things, was canceled.
“The fact that this is happening to a friendly club is unbearable. It is a dimension of horror,” said Presser. “We’re talking about children here, we’re talking about U9 and U10 teams.” So from elementary school students. Nevertheless, the club wants to continue training and playing as best as possible: “Nothing has changed in our orientation. We had training yesterday. We then decided that we would also have training today,” said Presser. “We have to reassess every day.”
Around 200 footballers work for the Munich team. Presser explained that the club is in constant communication with the authorities and the Bavarian Football Association. This is “supportive in every respect. That’s nice to see and feel,” said Presser.
Every nationality is welcome at Maccabi Munich – and every religion
Holocaust survivors founded the association in 1965. Today it is the only Jewish club in Germany to have its own sports facility. It is located at Riemer Straße 300 and is home to the Kurt Landauer sports field, named after the Jewish president of FC Bayern, who had to flee to Switzerland from the Nazis. The connection to the big Munich club is very close because of their shared Jewish past.
The former mayor Christian Ude once called the club a “bridge builder in the best sense of the word”. Because non-Jewish athletes have always been there, every nationality and every religion is welcome, as long as there is respect and tolerance for others. About 20 percent of the athletes are Jewish, Presser reported. The rest come “from all over the world and denominations.”
“The children should be able to be carefree for at least 90 minutes”
Actually, Maccabi currently wants to offer young footballers in particular a chance to briefly forget the news from Israel and Gaza. “The children should be able to be carefree during training and in league games for at least 90 minutes and pursue their passion,” said Presser, “that has to be our job.”
However, if the security situation requires training and games to be canceled for a longer period of time, Presser fears “the end of our football department. Because if the children and young people can no longer play the sport, then they will change clubs. That would be understandable and the logical consequence.”