German soccer team refuses to acknowledge fans over anti-Semitic, racist chants
Third-division Chemnitzer Football Club gives supporters cold shoulder after they chant that club director was a 'Jewish pig'
JTA — A German soccer team has called out its fans for anti-Semitic and racist comment during a game.
The members of the third-division Chemnitzer Football Club refused to acknowledge its traveling fans as is customary at the end of a match against Bayern Munich’s second team on Saturday after the racist and anti-Semitic chants were heard during the second half of the game, the German Deutsch-Welle news service reported.
Fans called the club’s sporting director Thomas Sobotzik a “Jewish pig” and chanted “at least Daniel Frahn is not a negro.” Sobotzik fired Frahn, the team captain, earlier this month after he repeatedly showed support for the far-right fans.
The fans’ chants “cannot have any acceptance in our society,” the team said in a statement, and threatened legal action against the fans.
The team has been in a running battle with its right-wing fans for several months. During a match in March, fans held a moment of silence and displayed a banner in honor of Thomas Haller, a local far-right leader and former head of the club’s security firm.
The city of Chemnitz, in Saxony, eastern Germany, is home to a well-established neo-Nazi network, which was known to have connections with the far-right terrorist organization National Socialist Underground, according to Deutsch-Welle.