Toni Kroos at the European Championship game against Spain
Photo: dpa/Christian Charisius
The mix of football and politics is often unpleasant. Just think of the “wolf salute” given by Turkish national player Merih Demiral at the current European Championships. Or to the Brazilian star footballer Neymar, who supported the fascist ex-president Jair Bolsonraro. Positive gestures like the “One Love” bandage, on the other hand, are in the minority.
Someone who also gets involved in politics is Toni Kroos, Germany’s most successful ball kicker of all time with 34 titles won. In a podcast, Kroos, whose ten-year employment at Real Madrid recently ended, blamed “uncontrolled migration” for increasing insecurity in Germany. Spain is safer in comparison, said the 34-year-old. There you can let teenage girls “out” in the evenings – but not in a major German city. However, Kroos, who also played for Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern Munich and Hansa Rostock, did not mention the word “knife migrants”.
He didn’t need it either. Despite claims that Germany needs immigration, such statements are grist to the mill of Weidel, Chrupalla and the like, from whom the native of Greifswald has distanced himself (“No one needs this party”). The right is trying to get votes after attacks like the one in Mannheim, in which a police officer was stabbed by a refugee. Kroos could now serve as their advocate. Even if he never wanted that.
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