A case of massive anti-Semitism is making waves in Berlin. After a sports show report, politics and the judiciary become active. The perpetrators face criminal consequences, and an apology is met with skepticism by Makkabi Berlin.
On Friday (02/03/2023) Ergün Cakir tried to limit the damage. He wanted to apologize, said the chairman of Charlottenburg FC Hertha 06 from Berlin. The case of massive anti-Semitism on the sidelines of the A youth game between Hertha 06 and TuS Makkabi Berlin on November 13, 2022, about which the WDR magazine Sport inside and the sports show had reported in the past week, meanwhile has consequences: it employs the judiciary and politics.
Investigations against players
When asked by WDR, the public prosecutor’s office in Berlin confirmed investigations into the two players who had shown the worst hatred of Jews at the game. According to a report in the newspaper “BZ”, it was the spokesman for the Berlin Interior Senate, Thilo Cablitz, who informed the police after the WDR report and asked them to initiate proceedings.
Immediately after the game in November, however, two reports were received against the players – these are about the facts of possible hate speech and the use of unconstitutional symbols (paragraph 86a), the police said when asked.
The police said it was still being checked whether Ergün Cakir’s statements in the WDR documentation were also criminally relevant. Cakir had served anti-Semitic ways of thinking there after his son’s two-year ban by the sports court of the Berlin Football Association and declared that his son would “hate the Jews in his entire life”.
Club chairman apologizes
Cakir was criticized nationwide for the statements. He is now being massively attacked himself, said the contractor on Friday in an interview with Sport inside: “There are constant threatening calls.” He feels misunderstood and now regrets his statements.
On Thursday, the “BZ” reported that he had shown himself unreasonable in conversation with the newspaper. Now he stressed: “I apologize for what happened”so Cakir, “That shouldn’t have happened on a sports field. I apologize for my club, our players – and as the father of a boy who did something like that.”
He emphasized once again how multicultural Hertha 06 is: “We also have Russian Jews in the club.” Youth leader Haldun Öztek said they were planning a conciliatory gesture towards Makkabi’s A youth, who had literally had to flee the sports field.
Makkabi Berlin remains skeptical
At Makkabi Berlin, Cakir’s new statements are carefully classified. Ilja Gop, spokesman for the board, told WDR: “An apology is always welcome when you’ve done something wrong – but it has to be sincere. And we have doubts about that.” It irritates him that Cakir showed little understanding for the situation of TuS Makkabi both before the sports court and in the Sport-inside report.
“We’ll see if it’s meant to be honest in the long term, or if he just wants his club not to be punished so harshly. Then we’ll see.”said Gop. He would have wished that Cakir had approached those responsible for Maccabi last Sunday. Since the league game of both men’s teams took place in the Oberliga – on the same place where the A youth game had escalated.
The case concerns the Berlin Football Association
Next Monday (February 6th, 2023), the executive committee of the Berlin Football Association will deal with possible further measures against Hertha 06. There is also a conversation between members of the Executive Committee and Cakir.
The deputy district mayor in Berlin-Charlottenburg, Heike Schmitt-Schmelz, has already issued a statement demanding that CFC Hertha 06 distance itself from its chairman: “Should this incident not have any consequences in the club, I will already have measures examined that go as far as withdrawing the sports areas and public sports funding.” According to Cakir, he did not want to comment on the demand for his withdrawal.