“Spoke to him”
Illegal possession of weapons: consequences for DFB star?
Updated 11/16/2025 – 8:49 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
Before the decisive game against Slovakia, the DFB is focusing on Karim Adeyemi’s personality. There is a criminal warrant against him. The national coach reacts.
William Laing reports from Leipzig
The German national team is about to qualify directly for the 2026 World Cup. In order to be sure of taking part in the tournament in the USA, Canada and Mexico, the DFB team only needs a draw on Monday evening against Slovakia (from 8:45 p.m. in the live ticker on t-online). But before the showdown in Leipzig there is suddenly unrest in the team.
“Bild” first reported on Saturday that BVB professional Karim Adeyemi had received a penalty notice a few weeks ago. The reason: illegal possession of weapons. The police are said to have found brass knuckles and a Taser on Adeyemi. In Germany, these items are strictly prohibited according to weapons law.
The result: The 23-year-old has to pay a high fine. He was sentenced by the Wetter (Ruhr) district court to 60 daily rates of 7,500 euros each. Adeyemi’s offense cost him a total of 450,000 euros.
But does the incident also have consequences for his time with the national team? Julian Nagelsmann was asked about this on Sunday at the final press conference. “Rudi and I spoke to him,” the national coach confirmed the exchange with the player and DFB sports director Rudi Völler to the assembled journalists. “But I think you can forgive me: This is a topic that obviously takes up a bit of space and also takes up a bit of time, which I don’t have as a coach before a game like this, to be honest.”
Nagelsmann emphasized the importance of the game against Slovakia. “So we will deal with this issue after the game.” The Adeyemi case was “a bit too big for the German Football Association for such a short period of time before such an important game for all of us.” This means that the penalty order does not have any short-term consequences for the offensive man in the DFB team. After the game on Monday, in the worst case scenario, that could change.