Oke Göttlich maintains his critical stance towards World Cup co-host USA and wants to continue the debate about a possible boycott despite the rebuke from the German Football Association (DFB).
“You can’t keep a topic quiet,” said the president of FC St. Pauli on ZDF on the sidelines of the cup quarter-finals at Bayer Leverkusen.
Göttlich added that he could accept the critical feedback from the DFB, but it still “surprised him because for me it is a matter of course that you ask yourself before you go to a big tournament to what extent the conditions there are for access for fans, for free encounters and so on.”
Divine: Football “doesn’t work in a test tube”
Football “doesn’t work in a test tube,” warned Göttlich. In the USA, attempts are being made to “bring about a democratic split”. It is right that the DFB is coordinating closely with the federal government on this issue. However, one must ask oneself the question “to what extent it is okay to give tendencies that undermine democracy a sporting stage.”
He even believes, said Göttlich, that the association around President Bernd Neuendorf is “somewhat grateful” to him that the discussion did not just boil up in the run-up to the tournament “and that we can prepare sensibly. And I’m not saying that the players should cover their eyes or ears.”
For him, it’s more about German and European football having to be clear about “which country we’re going to, at what times, and what we want to represent there.” It is certainly possible to travel to the USA, “hopefully go far and play football for democracy,” said Göttlich.
The DFB had announced that staying away from the tournament in the USA, Mexico and Canada (June 11th to July 19th) was “currently not an issue”. Such debates, it was said in the direction of Vice Divine, should be conducted “internally”.
