Sport: FC Bundestag no longer wants to accept AfD members

The FC Bundestag no longer wants to accept members of the AfD. The football club decided this at its general meeting, wrote Green MP Bruno Hönel, one of the team’s vice-captains, on X, formerly Twitter.

“We do not accept discrimination, our values ​​are cosmopolitanism, tolerance and a commitment to democracy. The right-wing extremists want the opposite.” The club’s captain, Mahmut Özdemir (SPD), also announced the decision.

According to Özdemir, the FC Bundestag has been dealing with the question of the compatibility of AfD membership in the FC Bundestag since 2017. That year, the club’s statutes also stated that the FC Bundestag, as an association of members of the German Bundestag, represented “the values ​​of the free-democratic basic order and the parliamentary system of the Federal Republic of Germany on a non-partisan and inter-party basis.” “He stands for cosmopolitanism, international understanding and tolerance and takes a clear position against any form of nationalism, racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobic tendencies,” it says.

“Membership in the AfD means that every single member agrees to be part of a community that casts doubt on these stated values ​​of the statutes,” explained Özdemir. He was referring to the report by the media company Correctiv about a meeting of radical right-wingers on November 25th in Potsdam, which was also attended by AfD politicians and individual members of the CDU and the very conservative Union of Values.

“Our signal is clear that we in the FC Bundestag will not tolerate members who, as members of the AfD, make a deal with right-wing extremism or at least accept it with approval. This means that every single AfD colleague can consider whether they should be a member of the AfD or membership in the FC Bundestag is more important,” emphasized the club captain.

The club has existed since 1961

“The Pioneer” previously reported on the decision. According to information from the portal, the football club’s board is also checking the existing memberships of at least four AfD MPs. The FC Bundestag is the cross-party football team in the German Bundestag.

According to the club’s homepage, the club’s first game took place on April 12, 1961, against a VIP team from WDR. The players meet every Tuesday during the meeting weeks from March to November. The home stadium is the Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark in Berlin. Many former members later went on to have careers, becoming ministers or even chancellors.

The association names, among others, Joschka Fischer (Greens), Franz Josef Jung (CDU), Norbert Lammert (CDU), Franz Müntefering (SPD), Peter Ramsauer (CSU), Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU), Rudolf Scharping (SPD), Andreas Scheuer (CSU), Gerhard Schröder (SPD), Peter Struck (SPD), Klaus Töpfer (CDU) or Theodor Waigel (CSU).