The AfD votes for soccer with a moderate quota
The national team is too diverse, the AfD finds it disturbing. But in the end, the Germany match against Denmark was more interesting at the Essen party congress - at least for a narrow majority.
The average AfD supporter finds the national team a gray crowd. Too much multiculti, too diverse, not enough German. From every pore of football, "the rainbow ideology" emerges, Björn Höcke of the far-right wing rants and once again demonstrates ethnic thinking. The AfD's European election candidate, Maximilian Krah, spoke of a "Foreign Legion" in reference to the national team.
The CDU politician Serap Güler suspects that the AfD wouldn't even shrink back from invoking divine powers: The party of self-proclaimed patriots prays every day that the national team will leave. For some parts of the party, this could be significant.
However, the strict right around the former German and history teacher Höcke should have known that the German team would be quite weak without its players with migration background - all of whom, by the way, have a German passport. In the German team jersey, there is no super talent like Jamal Musiala, who scored three of the ten German EM goals so far. Other pillars of the German team with ancestors from other countries include, among others, the robust defender Antonio Rüdiger and Ilkay Gündoğan, who wears the captain's armband.
Perhaps the AfD is not as foreigner-hating as it seems? The observer rubs his eyes in disbelief: At the Essen AfD party congress, a scheduled agenda item for Saturday evening was moved to Sunday. The reason given by the proposer: "Then we can all still watch football tonight."
There is a majority for the motion - but it is significantly below the viewership for the Germany match. More than 46% of the delegates would have preferred to choose referees instead - not for a football match, but for the party's federal arbitration court.
- Despite expressing concerns about the diversification of the national soccer team, AfD supporters still showed interest in watching the Germany match against Denmark at the Essen party congress, demonstrating a potential complex relationship with the team and its multicultural composition.
- During the European Football Championship 2024, the German team, with players like Jamal Musiala, Antonio Rüdiger, and Ilkay Gündoğan, who all have German passports and play critical roles, will likely challenge traditional stereotypes about the national team, potentially opening up conversations within AfD circles.
- In a surprising turn of events, the AfD's party congress agenda in Essen included moving a scheduled item to a later time so that participants could watch the Germany match, indicating a segment of the party that values football over political debates, potentially hinting at a more nuanced perspective on diversity in sports.
