July 19 – Germany’s entire Olympic football team walked off the field on Saturday during a behind-closed-doors friendly ahead of the Tokyo Games after one of their players was allegedly racially abused by an opponent.
The game against Honduras in Wakayama was ended five minutes early following the alleged abuse directed at defender Jordan Torunarigha.
“The German team left the field together after our player Jordan Torunarigha was racially insulted,” said a statement from the German FA.
Coach Stefan Kuntz added: “If one of our players is racially insulted, it is not an option for us to continue playing”.
“Five minutes before the end of the game there was a scuffle. I ran to Jordan because I saw his gestures. He was getting terribly upset.
“He said that he had been racially insulted for the second time. We decided to leave the pitch because it was against our values.”
“The whole Honduras squad came over to the bench and apologised. That ended the issue for us and Jordan.”
The Honduras team later tweeted the incident was a “misunderstanding on the pitch”, but did not provide details.
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