Former Germany player Bastian Schweinsteiger said Friday he was talking about Ivory Coast’s style and not its players when he spoke last weekend about what his country's national team could expect from its African opponent during their group match.
Schweinsteiger called it, “A bit African football, a bit unorthodox, a bit wild, a bit perhaps also not so conditioned by tactics" and added it was unpredictable. Ivory Coast coach Emerse Faé slammed those comments on Thursday as being racist.
“I was talking about football, not about people," Schweinsteiger said in a statement released by German broadcaster ARD, the same outlet on which he made the remarks. "It’s a football analysis. Nothing more and nothing less. ... I certainly didn’t mean to offend anyone.”
Some commentators criticized his comments as playing into racist stereotypes. Sports commentator Patrick Schnitzler wrote on Instagram of “racist prejudices that we are all passing on unnoticed,” and journalist Philipp Awounou, who is Black, wrote in Der Spiegel magazine that the characterizations played on old racist tropes rooted in colonialism. Awounou said he did not think Schweinsteiger is racist.
Germany went on to defeat the Ivory Coast 2-1 on Saturday.
Faé then led Ivory Coast into the World Cup knockout round for the first time in its history with a 2-0 win over Curaçao on Thursday. Faé said after the game he hoped Schweinsteiger had made a “clumsy statement that’s not necessarily reflective of what’s in his life.”
“We could call it racist, if we were calling a spade a spade,” Faé said.
Jürgen Klopp, who is working for broadcaster Magenta, seemed taken aback when asked about Schweinsteiger’s comments by Deutsche Welle in a conversation with journalists in New York on Wednesday.
“Now you want to carry on the subject,” Klopp responded before breaking off the interview. “No, no, I have no chance. I have no chance to answer this question. Everybody likes it so you bring me in this situation. It’s not my job that everybody likes it, but this is a serious subject, and I don’t even know what is appropriate to say. For African people it’s one thing, for other people it’s another thing, and I’m not here.”
ARD executive Axel Balkausky defended Schweinsteiger’s stance.
“He summarized his experiences and observations from recent games,” said Balkausky, ARD’s sports coordinator. "It wasn’t about individual people but rather a footballing assessment. I can’t detect any form of racism in that or in his choice of words. If the coach of Ivory Coast, Emerse Faé, were to speak directly with Bastian, his suspicions would be quickly revised, I am sure of that. Perhaps an opportunity of that sort will arise in the course of the tournament.”
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