After anti-Semitic statements by two players and the club chairman, the district league team CFC Hertha 06 has now spoken out. He condemned the behavior of the players who gave the Nazi salute and threatened opposing Maccabi fans at a game last November. “It cannot be that Jews in our country feel threatened. We very much regret that our members of all people gave us an opportunity for this,” the association said. The Berlin Football Association (BFV) had suspended the players for two years.
Only recently, club chairman Ergün Çakır defended the behavior of the players, one of whom is his son, in an ARD documentary. “My son will hate the Jews his entire life,” he said. He knew that one hundred percent. “There is no one you can sit down and talk to, but they say from the start: We are Jews, we have the right, we can do anything we want.”
On Monday, the BFV therefore announced that it was initiating judicial proceedings against the club chairman, because: “The statements made by Ergün Çakır are completely unacceptable from the point of view of the Berlin Football Association and not compatible with the values enshrined in the statutes,” said BFV President Bernd Schultz. Çakır had until Tuesday to submit a catalog of measures that should contain sustainable concepts for combating anti-Semitic structures as well as concrete implementation steps.
Çakır will probably not resign
In an official statement on Tuesday evening, the association asked “all people of the Jewish faith to apologize for the thoughtless and hurtful statements”. Çakır said what he said on TV was unacceptable and discriminatory. “I would like to limit the damage as much as possible and now, with numerous measures and also ruthless work on myself, ensure that something like this does not happen again in our club.” Internally, measures to deal with the situation have already been initiated. How these should look in concrete terms is not explained in more detail. For the time being, Çakır’s resignation as chairman does not seem to be an option.
Çakır only wants to support Makkabi’s prevention project “Together1 – For what unites us” financially. Makkabi launched this two years ago with the aim of raising awareness of anti-Semitism in organized sport in the long term and strengthening it with proposed solutions, for example through training and educational opportunities. A survey found that 39 percent of all athletes in Maccabi had been involved in at least one anti-Semitic incident in sport.
Source: Tagesspiegel
Brayden White, a veteran sports writer at Global Happening, brings his wealth of knowledge and expertise to the sports section. With over a decade of experience, he is committed to delivering high-quality coverage of the latest games and events.
