#scheißafd

„Borussia Dortmund is profoundly political“ the press officer of the Ruhr area club writes. „Thank you for this important enquiry,“ the colleague from Hoffenheim writes. All Bundesliga clubs reply, which is remarkable on its own.

Because when it’s about politics, email requests to football clubs are often moved to the virtual waste-paper basket. A common argument used to be that it wasn’t their respective area of responsibility. „Football has to try and stay away from political positioning“ Ralf Rangnick, coach of RB Leipzig, demanded not too long ago.

Werder Bremen’s president Hubertus Hess-Grunewald in turn declared it a matter of impossibility to make a football stadium a politics-free zone. Racist statements can be met with either silence or protest. Both are political, as they're perceived as either acceptance or disapproval. And in this vein Hess-Grunewald recently took a clear stand, and taz took the occasion to conduct a survey in 1. Liga.

„It’s a contradiction to support Werder and vote for the AfD“ Hess-Grunewald had said. So taz asked all the other clubs „Is it a contradiction to support your club and vote for the AfD?“

Only Hertha BSC answered with a simple „Yes.“ The capital’s club made headlines last season when the players collectively took a knee before kick-off, imitating US American athletes and their popular symbolic gesture against racism.

A little more elaborately, but just as clearly, Borussia Mönchengladbach replied in the affirmative. „Based on the assumption that the fans engage with the guidelines and general appearance of their club you can clearly state: Yes, it’s a contradiction.“ And Mainz 05 referred to a campaign which was, from the club’s point of view, answer enough. When AfD’s party chairman Alexander Gauland gave a speech at Mainz castle on the day of Mainz 05’s away game at Nuremberg, the club ran a newspaper ad „When away is the better alternative in Germany this Saturday“. [„AfD“ stands for „Alternative for Germany“.] Adding a small specification, 1. FC Nürnberg sets clear boundaries as well: „Anybody holding right-wing views or voting AfD out of right-wing motives can have no place at 1. FC Nürnberg.“

Initially the question „Where do you stand on AfD?“ had been brought up by the president of Eintracht Frankfurt. Peter Fischer said in an FAZ interview in December 2017: „Nobody can be a member [of our club] if they vote for this party with its racist and dehumanising tendencies.“ A few months later he bemoaned the fact that nobody in Bundesliga had followed his example. He wished, he said, that other clubs would take a clear stand against AfD as well.

What’s peculiar is the fact that all of the Bundesliga clubs not mentioned so far, in their reply to the AfD-question, without being asked to, denounced xenophobia, racism and exclusion - without mentioning the AfD at all. The „profoundly political“ Dortmunders, like many others, emphasise their neutrality concerning party politics.

Peter Fischer had suspected that the clubs were so noticeably reluctant concerning anti-AfD statements out of economic interests. After all 13 percent of voters were buying energy drinks, pills or cars. A hint to the main sponsors of the clubs.

But the matter is more complicated than that. Starting with the fact that the call for expulsion of AfD-voters from Eintracht Frankfurt was of purely symbolic political value. From a legal standpoint, concerning a party that’s not been classified as unconstitutional, it would be a futile endeavour. Werder Bremen’s president Hubertus Hess-Grunewald’s wielding a finer blade.

He explained his declaration on the contradiction between Werder and the AfD in a Weser Kurier interview thusly: „That doesn’t mean that he (the AfD voter, editor’s note) shouldn’t come to the stadium, but he should engage with our attitude and maybe he can be convinced to help working towards an open, tolerant society without exclusion and populism after all.“

The division in German society that’s become palpable with the AfD’s electoral successes has undoubtedly led to a politisation of football as well. Record champion Bayern München even has its board’s chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge answer taz’s AfD-question: „Football is a game for everybody, and football has values. FC Bayern unequivocally stands for cultural openness, integration, tolerance and respect.“

It’s very likely that the clubs will have to deal with this subject more thoroughly in the foreseeable future. There was a little commotion at FC Augsburg’s recent annual members’ meeting when one person, railing loudly, protested the presence of club member Markus Bayerbach, the chairman of Augsburg’s AfD. President Klaus Hofmann declared that if a motion was brought forward the legal possibilities of an exclusion could be investigated, as well as if a majority [of club members] was in favour of it.

An AfD party membership itself is certainly not sufficient. But if there was proof of xenophobic or racist statements on the part of Bayerbach, following Augsburg’s [club] constitution, like the statutes of other clubs, there would be cause for exclusion.