The French international Paul Pogba removed a bottle of non-alcoholic Heineken beer from his table without comment at a European Championship press conference on Tuesday, June 15. Numerous German media reported about it (here, here and here) and speculated that Pogba removed the bottle because he Muslim be. However, Pogba did not say that. It is an unconfirmed guess.
The Heineken Brewery is a Sponsor the European Football Championship. On June 25th, the Facebook page “Transfer Rumors – Europe” published one Contributionwhich shows a picture of the scene. It was said that out of respect for Muslim players, beer bottles were “no longer displayed”. The post was commented a thousand times on Facebook. The statement in it is correct, but formulated a little misleadingly.
Several media reported on June 25 (here or here), Uefa is now giving Muslim players the choice of whether they want beer bottles on their table or not. The sponsor Heineken agreed to this.
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Uefa: Pogba beer bottle campaign was not the reason for the decision
Uefa confirmed our request by email: “If a player who is Muslim has objections to a bottle of Heineken 0.0 on the conference table, the bottle will be removed before the player comes into the room. All those responsible for the media in the national associations were briefed accordingly. ”
However, Uefa wrote that Paul Pogba’s action was not the reason for this decision.
In fact, the controversy surrounding beer bottles as promotional items at press conferences is not new. 2015 reported media about the soccer player Shkodran Mustafiwho was a Muslim and did not want a beer in front of him at a press conference of FC Valencia. He said “I don’t want the beer” and pushed the bottle away, but it was put back.
The Heineken brewery has not yet responded to our press inquiry about the current decision by UEFA.
Redigatur: Sarah Thust, Till Eckert
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