Schalke’s Christopher Antwi-Adjei (left) reported a racist insult to him-and was then whistled by locomotive fans.
Photo: Imago/Jan Huebner
“I think it came from a single person: ‘shit n ****’ was called. It’s just under all the sow, ”said Schalke player Christopher Antwi-Adjei of the» Sportschau «. His team had just beaten the regional league Lokomotive Leipzig on Sunday evening in the first round of the DFB Cup. However, nobody spoke about the game after the duel.
The television pictures showed the Schalke player two hours earlier on the side of the side in front of the fan curve of the Leipzig fans. The international Ghanas actually wanted to make a throw -in in the twelfth minute of the game. But instead of bringing the ball into play, the 31-year-old went to the line judge to report the racist insult to him. “I gave him a signal that something happened. That was the least I could do, ”said Antwi-Adjei.
The players did not hear any further insults – otherwise the Schalke team would have left the place. “If that went on, we would have been behind Christopher as a team and not continued,” said Schalke captain Kenan Karaman. However, this was followed by a multi -minute interruption and a warning from the stadium spokesman to “refrain from discriminatory calls”. The reaction of the fans? Whistle. “The worst thing is: Chris will then whistle over 120 minutes. Then I get on, «said coach Miron Muslić after the game.
Muslić contradicts Lok coach Seitz
Lok press spokesman Carsten Muschalle relativized the whistles during the half-time break at “Sky”: “The fact that a player is now whistled is not entirely unusual on a soccer field, which should be somewhere else. The reason is now of course one where something is in the room, which is not nice. “He also said:” We have an employee who is a wheelchair user who sits exactly at the point or almost at the point where the player has stood. He didn’t hear anything. “Nevertheless,” racism and discrimination on the soccer field would have no place, “said Muschalle. Muslić, in turn, made it clear: “Some say that it has lost nothing on the soccer field – that has not lost anything anywhere!”
The statement by Leipzig coach Holger Seitz, who said at the press conference after the game, was “a shame that such a football festival is drawn into negative by a single statement,” Muslić did not want to leave it. “I have to check again because we always play down: individuals. I think the whole stadium has had a feeling why the game is interrupted. The whole stadium whistled. This is not an individual. But unfortunately God is so common that you play down it and then push it off as an idiot. I don’t see it that way, I would like to emphasize that, «said the Bosnian-Austrian coach.
Later in the evening, the Leipzig association commented on its website: »We are not proud of the racist insult that Schalke player Christopher Antwi-Adjei had to learn from a viewer in the 15th minute. Of course, in the name of the entire 1st FC Lok Leipzig, we apologize in all form with Christopher Antwi-Adjei and FC Schalke 04! «
Several incidents on the weekend
Racist insults in football are not isolated cases. Also on Sunday, the 1st FC Kaiserslautern was a guest in Potsdam at RSV Eintracht Stahnsdorf in the first round of the DFB Cup. This game was also interrupted because a spectator had racially insulted a player who was sitting on the Lautern compensation bench. When the stadium speaker made one announcement here, the fans in Potsdam reacted differently than in Leipzig – with support for the player. Fans of both teams chanted: “Nazis out!”
Already on Friday a fan in Liverpool had been referred to the Stadium FC and AFC Bournemouth at the opening game of the English league because he had racistly insulted the bournemouth player Antoine Semenyo.
Antwi-Adjei filed an advertisement from the Leipzig police on Monday, which is now investigating for insult. The DFB control committee has also initiated investigations into both incidents in Germany. Hermann Winkler, the President of the Northeast German Football Association and DFB Vice President, was concerned with DPA to warn of “speculation and blame”. He himself was in the stadium and “noticed no xenophobic mood”.