Football: Göring-Eckardt outraged with tweet about skin colour of European Championship players

Bundestag Vice President Katrin Göring-Eckardt caused a stir with a tweet on the X platform that has since been deleted about the skin color of the players on the German national football team. After the German team’s 2-0 European Championship victory against Hungary, the Green Party politician wrote: “This team is really great. Just imagine if there were only white German players.”

After a shitstorm, she deleted the tweet four hours later and wrote early in the morning: “I’m sorry about how I worded it. It upset me that 21% of Germans would prefer it if there were more ‘whites’ in the national team. I am proud of this team and hope that we can convince the 21% as well.”

Apparently, Göring-Eckardt was referring to a representative survey published at the beginning of June for the WDR program “Sport Inside,” in which one in five people said they would prefer it if more white players were playing in the German national team again. National coach Julian Nagelsmann criticized 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.

Criticism of the tweet came immediately from, among others, deputy FDP leader 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 on X. And extremism researcher Ahmad Mansour wrote on the platform: “Anyone who brings up the skin color of the players on the German national team is practicing racism, regardless of the motivation behind it.” Numerous other X users also accused the Green politician of racism.