August 18 – Just as Bayern Munich were plotting a return to European greatness after their 8-2 demolition of Barcelona in the Champions League quarter finals, the club has been hit by racism allegations towards a leading coach in its academy that has now triggered a police investigation.
The racism allegations detail a number of WhatsApp group chats where the coach makes clearly racist comments that are commented on positively by other coaches and members of the chat group.
In one case he posted a photo of a truck with the label “Bimbo” on it and wrote: “Transport. This is where the negroes are transported from A to B.”
According to and investigation by Germany’s Sport inside the coach regularly uses racist expressions when referring to players. In one case he comments on a trialist: “Fat pig. A negro, or.” In another post on a player he wrote: “Shut up, camel driver.” Players are often referred to as “Filthy Turk” or “Kanake” , and youth players with a potential migrant background, on several occasions received the comment: “I don’t like last name.”
The coach has been at Bayern for a number of years and has previously been considered untouchable within the Bayern hierarchy. Letters of complaint have been received by the club since 2018 detailing both his racist and frequent homophobic behaviour but also training methods including physical punishments that parents felt were extreme and dangerous.
A letter, dated October 28, 2019, was sent to the deputy sports director of the FC Bayern Campus, Holger Seitz, signed from “the increasingly worried but anxious parenthood” .
Bayern CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge has promised that the club will act following an investigation into the incidents. The complaints were initially dismissed internally within the club as a private feud between certain parents and the academy coach.
The complaints were not however dismissed by Munich police who are reportedly iinvestigating at least one FC Bayern employee from the youth training center. “We have the principle of legality,” said the Munich police press spokesman Werner Kraus, “that means we have to investigate when it comes to a criminal offense…If the allegations were confirmed, then this would clearly be a racist act. It would then be a criminal offense.”
Rummenigge said: “There will be imminent consequences. The business does not at all match the values that FC Bayern Munich represents… I have to say that loud and clear — because it must not be forgotten: we are a club that has always opposed racism.”
While the club may bring joy to many with its spectacular current Champions League performances, it will now be tainted with the institutionalised racist misery it has brought to many others within its youth academy who were supposedly safely within its own family.
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