https://www.sportschau.de/fussball/bund ... e-100.htmlRacism on the Bayern Campus?
There is a suspicion of racism in the junior performance centre of FC Bayern Munich. Serious accusations are being made against an employee of the club, who has long been active as a coach in the youth department of the record champions, among other things.
Documents such as chat histories and letters which are available to the WDR background magazine Sport inside also suggest that FC Bayern has so far hardly reacted to the serious accusations. However, on Monday (10.08.2020) the club confirmed to WDR "internal investigations". The club is also coming under pressure from a Twitter account that appeared last week under the name of the employee, whom the club called a "fake account" when asked by WDR. In the past few days, unknown persons have published parts of an alleged chat history from a WhatsApp group within the youth section of the club. Often racist expressions
Sport inside, these chat logs have been available for several weeks. In the alleged chats, a participant with the name of the employee in question makes several clearly racist statements. In one case he posted a photo of a truck with the inscription "Bimbo" and wrote underneath: "Transport. This is where Negroes are transported from A to B." The post was commented on with smilies by other members of the group, obviously other coaches or scouts of the club.
In discussions about signing players, the employee also often uses racist language. In one case, he comments on the name, height and weight of a potential new member in this way: "Fat pig. A Negro, or." He wrote to one of his colleagues with the words: "Shut up, camel jockey." Several times, players are referred to as "Dirty Turk" or "Kanake". When proposing commitments of players with obvious immigrant backgrounds, he commented on them several times with the words: "Last name doesn't appeal to me." Anonymous complaint letters to the club management
The chat histories are said to be two years old, but are only now becoming public after several coaches recently left FC Bayern Campus, the club's youth performance centre. Some of them said they did not leave voluntarily. For some time now, there has been internal criticism of the behaviour of the Campus employee, who has enormous power - and is taking action against critics. In short, so the tenor of several conversations: The said employee is protected by the campus management.
Sport inside spoke with several former and still current coaches as well as with affected parents, who confirmed many of the accusations. Since September 2018 there have been four anonymous letters to FC Bayern. Alleged senders are said to be parents of children at the junior performance centre who are not named. Whether the letters actually originate from the parents cannot be clearly determined. The sender or senders complain about the way the youth coach treats the children entrusted to him. "In our helplessness..." - then the first letter begins, together with the request "to take the problems seriously and to examine them carefully internally". Accusation: Sadistic criminal training
These anonymous letters are also available to WDR. They were addressed to campus director Jochen Sauer, but also to the chairman of the board Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, the then club president Uli Hoeneß, sports director Hasan Salihamidzic as well as the sports director of the youth performance centre and co-trainer of the professional team, Hermann Gerland. The last letter, dated 28 October 2019, was addressed to the Deputy Sports Director of FC Bayern Campus Holger Seitz and is signed "the increasingly concerned but anxious parenthood".
In the letters, the youth coach is criticised not only for his treatment of children and young people and his sometimes homophobic and racist tone - but also for his training methods. There is talk of sadistic criminal training, some of which would be dangerous to health. One of the letters describes in detail the case of a player who collapsed. "Such people," write the author or authors, "are not allowed to work with children."
Furthermore, according to these letters, parents felt compelled to have their children represented by a certain player advisor with whom the accused employee is supposed to maintain close contact. How close the contacts with the named advisor are can partly be seen from the chat histories available to WDR. FC Bayern sees "a kind of private feud
The association confirmed the existence of three letters and informed WDR on request that they 'obviously came from one and the same sender'. Nevertheless, the letters were used as an opportunity to inform the parents of the players of the teams that had been sent by the member of the club.