Berlin (dpa) – A tweet from a right-wing politician following Germany’s exit from the European Football Championship that appeared to reference the multi-ethnic nature of the team drew an angry response from mainstream lawmakers on Friday.
World champions Germany lost 2-0 to hosts France in Thursday’s semi-final.
«Perhaps next time the German NATIONAL TEAM should play once more,»
tweeted Beatrix von Storch, one of two members of the European Parliament for the eurosceptic and anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
«Miserable spoilsport,» was the comment from Armin Laschet of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), while the CDU’s Berlin branch accused Von Storch of misusing football for «racist allusions.»
Ralf Stegner of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) weighed in with:
«Pure stupidity.»
The Germany team on Thursday included Mesut Oezil and Emre Can, who are of Turkish descent, and Jerome Boateng, whose father is Ghanaian.
All three were born in Germany while substitute Shkodran Mustafi came on and is of Albanian descent but was also born in Germany.
Deputy AfD leader Alexander Gauland had already caused controversy in May by saying that Germans would not want Boateng as a neighbour.
As for Von Storch, Omid Nouripour for the Greens feigned ignorance of her very existence.
«Who is this sad person who is unable to enjoy the fact that we are world champions?» the Tehran-born member of the German parliament queried.
The television satirist Jan Boehmermann, who recently outraged Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with an obscene poem and drew legal action under an old German law, called for a united front to «ignore Beatrix von Storch.»
Von Storch deleted her tweet and turned to Facebook where she explained that her remark was directed at the team’s name, not at individual players.
German football authorities have for some time referred to the side as «the team» (Die Mannschaft) rather than as «the national team.»
