The German U21 internationals Youssoufa Moukoko and Jessic Ngankam were massively racially insulted on social media after they missed penalties at the start of the European Championship.
“If we win, we are all Germans. If we lose, these monkey comments come. Jessic got them, I got them. Things like that just don’t belong in football,” said 18-year-old Moukoko after the 1-1 draw (1:1) of the German team at the start of the European Football Championship against Israel.
Both the Dortmunder and Ngankam from Hertha BSC had missed a penalty in the game in Georgia. For defending champion Germany it was only enough for a draw to start the tournament.
“We don’t shoot extra, we try to help the team. When you get messages like that, it’s disgusting,” said Moukoko, who was born in Cameroon.
“It hurt this time. No player misses a penalty.” Moukoko reported that he was repeatedly confronted with such comments. “Slowly it’s enough. It’s about time that a sign was set against it,” he demanded.
Moukoko then added to the “Bild”: “There were very ugly comments on social media. Things like that don’t belong in football. That’s disgusting! It just hurts.”
The fact that the German U17s won the European Championship a few weeks ago also shows that this is by no means an isolated case.
“Unfortunately, there were unpleasant circumstances off the field – or rather on the Internet. There was a strong accumulation of racist comments under individual postings on our social media channels,” said Joti Chatzialexiou, the sporting director of the national teams, after the success in the Interview on the “DFB website”.
“Our lads saw this too, and it kept them very busy. But together they decided not to give these distractions any room during the course of the tournament and have thus moved even closer together as a team,” continued Chatzialexiou: “As a team that deals with Completely identifies with Germany and the eagle on her chest, who lives common values and stands up for diversity, tolerance, community and integration. Our boys are already great role models at their young age. I’m very proud of that.”