Oliver Mintzlaff (l.), CEO of RB Leipzig, and stadium spokesman Tim Thoelke. In the background: The Love-Peace-RB-Choreo, which was performed ad absurdum on Sunday. Image: imago images / Picture Point LE / roger petzsche
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opinion
Love, peace and racial profiling – RB Leipzig is ridiculous
Love and peace. Rainbow colors and grass ball. Before the Bundesliga game against Bayer Leverkusen, there was a large and colorful choreography in the Leipzig fan block. The motto: “Love, Peace and Lawn Ball”. The club wanted to publicly oppose all forms of racism and discrimination, to present itself as cosmopolitan. Oliver Mintzlaff, the club’s chief executive, had emphasized this before the game.
“Love, Peace and Lawn Ball”: Here again in all its splendor. Image: imago images / Sven Sonntag
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Leipzig stadium spokesman Tim Thoelke condemned the hostility against Dietmar Hopp during the choreo, which was seen in many stadiums on the last match day: “We stand for hospitable and peaceful football festivals. The ball is colorful.”
RB Leipzig leads his own choreo to absurdity a short time later
But just ten minutes after the game kicked off, the club made that hospitality absurd: The RB Leipzig security service expelled a group of Japanese from the Red Bull Arena – out of concern for the novel corona virus, as the approximately ten folders involved are said to have explained to the people from Japan.
Tim Thoelke, stadium spokesman for RB Leipzig. Image: imago images / Picture Point LE / sven sunday
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The club confirmed the incident on Monday afternoon and apologized. The security service was urged to carry out increased checks on groups of people from potential risk areas in accordance with a recommendation from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). “Unfortunately, in the specific case in the course of the great uncertainty that we currently have about this topic, we made a mistake in interpreting our Japanese guests. We would like to apologize for this mistake,” said RB With.
RB’s opinion and apology is a farce
This statement is like a farce. With its recommendation, the RKI certainly did not mean that people from Japan should be kicked out of a football stadium as a precaution. It’s not just any mistake the club admits. This mistake is very clear racism: what the Leipzig folder did at the club’s request is called racial profiling. Here, Asian-looking people were suspected of spreading an illness. So the files acted because of their origin and appearance, not because of any specific symptoms of illness. Whoever instructs his security service to do this has an institutional problem with racism.
Especially since Japan is not one of the “potential risk areas” of the RKI. So far, this includes only one province in China, one in South Korea and Iran, the city of Tehran, as well as two regions and one city in Italy. In Japan there are also a relatively large number of Covid 19 cases, according to the RKI 274 so far. if you compare it to the cases in Germany (188 according to the RKI), it is even slightly more likely that you will be infected in this country than with a person from Japan: The island nation has around 127 million inhabitants, so the number of infected is 0.00022 percent. In Germany, it is 0.00023 percent if you take 82 million inhabitants as a basis.
Call the child by name!
The problem is also: With another statement, RB Leipzig actually makes it worse, because they still don’t name the child in it and pretend it wasn’t all that bad.
In an update to the incident, the officials of the Japanese delegation and participants in the annual intensive courses on sports science in Leipzig now say on the Bundesliga team’s website: “We were always aware that this was about insecurity due to the Corona virus and nothing else. So everyone is looking forward to the constructive exchange. ”
As if it was done with such a wishy-washy press statement.
“Constructive exchange” with CMO, CFO, CEO and COO: The Japanese also say that it was not racism! screenshot: dierotenbullen.com
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RB Leipzig had already met the group concerned personally, invited them and apologized for what happened: “At the same time, we clearly refer to the values of our club and emphasize that we stand for tolerance, integration and openness and have been resolutely opposed to racism and any kind of exclusion since our existence.” The club is proud of “14 nationalities and diverse cultures” within the team.
Then why does the club act like this?
Yes, but why does the club act like that?if he stands for tolerance, integration and openness, if he stands firmly against racism of any kind of exclusion?
All of this has little to do with love, peace and hospitality. It’s just absurd and racist.
You can read the complete statement from RB Leipzig, including the update to the statement, here.
All players who switched from RB Salzburg to RB Leipzig:
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