Anger at racism against U21 players Moukoko and Ngankam

The result of this football game in the heavy rain in the Georgian city of Kutaisi was disappointing enough, with the German U21s having to settle for a meager 1:1 in their first game against Israel. The mood was bad after this unsuccessful start to the European Championship. And she got even worse.

Most of the players were already gone on the team bus when Youssoufa Moukoko spoke about racial slurs on Instagram directed at him and Jessic Ngankam. “If we win we’re all Germans, if we lose you get these monkey comments,” said the Borussia Dortmund striker, who, like Ngankam, missed a penalty.

“You have to fight against these people, no matter how,” continued Moukoko, who was not confronted with such incidents for the first time. “But,” he said, “this time it hurt me because no player misses a penalty on purpose.”

“Shocked and Disappointed”

Ngankam remained silent but Moukoko said he was very depressed and coach Antonio di Salvo was suddenly faced with an issue that lies far beyond his core role as a football coach. “It’s absurd when people anonymously comment on the internet and racially insult our boys, that doesn’t work at all,” said the coach. Moukoko and Ngankam are players “who love to play for Germany, who are Germans, who give everything for the country, so I’m personally shocked and disappointed.”

The mood in the U21s, who want to defend their 2021 title in Georgia and Romania, is suddenly clouded by a substance that is met with great helplessness above all else. On the one hand, the racists gain great power with every new publicly discussed incident. On the other hand, simply ignoring hurtful insults and hostilities would not be a satisfactory way of dealing with them either. So the problem is thrown back onto the agenda every few weeks by some incident, without fundamentally changing.

For example, when the Englishmen Jadon Sancho, Buyako Saka and Marcus Rashford missed in the penalty shoot-out of the 2021 European Championship final, they were so massively racially insulted that a social debate started in their home country. With no real solution.

“It must be punished”

After all, goalkeeper Noah Atubolu, who also has family roots in Africa, seems to have a partially working strategy. He’s so defensive on social media that he doesn’t get much of the poison of hate, he said. But you can’t expect this restraint from anyone, after all, a successful Instagram channel and the exchange with fans is an important part of self-marketing for many athletes.

The dark side is this perpetually repeating endless loop of wickedness. Before this European Championship, Yann Aurel Bisseck is said to have been insulted after he was appointed captain of the U21s. Effective countermeasures are rare.

“It’s not easy to control the internet and digital media, but that has to be punished,” said Di Salvo, whose team will now be dragging a difficult issue through the coming days. “That’s not beneficial,” he said after his players had actually traveled to Georgia in a good mood.

The team wasn’t really bad that evening either, but they “missed too many chances”, said Di Salvo; the penalties were just two of them. And after a yellow-red card for the Israeli Eden Karzev, the DFB selection even played with a majority for a whole half. It was already 1-1 after goals from Dor Turgeman (20′) and Bisseck (26′) and there was no further goal.

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In the next game against the Czech Republic on Sunday (6 p.m., in the FAZ live ticker for the U-21 European Championship and on Sat1), the DFB team is already under a lot of pressure, and how the racism issue will continue is unclear for the time being.

A few days ago, after repeated insults against the Brazilian Vinicius Junior from Real Madrid, the world association Fifa announced that it would set up a working group: “It is very important not only to talk about racism and discrimination, but to act decisively and convincingly – zero tolerance”, said FIFA President Gianni Infantino on the sidelines of an international match for the Seleção. “We want to identify racists in the stadiums and on social media. They are criminals.”