{"id":582,"date":"2025-11-17T16:57:02","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T21:57:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/?p=582"},"modified":"2025-11-18T11:17:47","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T16:17:47","slug":"1000-word-sports-and-migration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/1000-word-sports-and-migration\/","title":{"rendered":"1000 word sports and migration"},"content":{"rendered":"

At ten years old, while kicking a soccer ball on a field in Berlin, Nabil Rayk could already sense he was the \u201cother.” The opposing team\u2019s parents, \u201cthe Proper Germans\u201d as he puts it, would shout insults from the sidelines. \u201cKick that Arab, kick that N-word\u201d he recalled.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor them,\u201d Nabil said, \u201csometimes sport is a replacement for war.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A decade later, this same hostility has gone beyond the boundaries of sport. Divisions are now making their way into parliament debates and campaign rallies. These divisions are not new to European football, but their resurgence reflects the growing influence of far-right parties such as Alternative f\u00fcr Deutschland (AfD), which has gained momentum across Germany through its anti-immigrant rhetoric.<\/span><\/p>\n

For many immigrants and people of color, this prejudice is forcing their ethnic, religious, or racial identities and even their gender or sexual orientation into the spotlight. It leaves them questioning whether Germany truly sees them as part of the nation or as outsiders.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFootball is the real heavy tradition in Germany, it’s really hard to change something here in the football system, \u201d said <\/span>Stenny Bamer, a social worker for the fan scene of\u00a0 BFC Dynamo, a football club based in East Berlin, at Fanprojekt der Sportjugend Berlin.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fanprojekt is an independent initiative created by the Berlin Sports Organization to engage football fans aged 14 to 27 whose home teams are either BFC Dynamo or Hertha BSC, another club based in Berlin. It hopes to foster inclusion, anti-discrimination, and a sense of community through football culture.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI see a change in the fan scenes. They are getting more conservative, more right-wing.\u00a0 There is a real influence of the AfD policy on the football fans,\u201d Bamer added.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Germany, a football club\u2019s reputation often carries political significance and fans play a major role in shaping it. Eastern clubs like Dynamo have traditionally been linked to right-leaning politics, while many Western clubs are seen as more left-leaning.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prior to meeting Bamer, when I mentioned to a German sports journalist that I planned to attend a BFC Dynamo match for this story, he warned me not to go as a person of color, as it might not be safe.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI would never say to an immigrant person, go to a BFC Dynamo game because there are a lot of far right extremists,\u201d Bamer said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bamer wants the unwelcoming atmosphere at clubs like Dynamo to disappear. He\u2019s not alone as journalists, representatives from local NGOs, and club officials I spoke with also called for a more inclusive football environment where immigrant players are celebrated and immigrant fans feel welcome rather than treated as \u201cothers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Across these conversations, two main strategies for change emerged: change driven by club leadership or change as a result from the pressure of supporters.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn some clubs, it [change] can come from the top down. But in others, like St. Pauli, it came from the fans themselves,\u201d Bamer said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

St. Pauli, unlike Dynamo, is a liberal stronghold shaped by fan activism. During the 1980s and 90s, as neo-Nazi hooliganism spread through European football, more left-wing activists settled in Hamburg\u2019s St. Pauli district and <\/span>publicly<\/span><\/a> stood against fascist values in the stadium, rejecting racism and extremism.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Their pressure led the club to become the first in Germany to <\/span>ban<\/span><\/a> right-wing nationalist displays inside the stadium.\u00a0 <\/span>Today, St. Pauli remains committed to equality and diversity, and was one of 12 German clubs to publicly <\/span>condemn<\/span><\/a> the AfD earlier this year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dynamo, in contrast, did not speak out against the party.<\/span><\/p>\n

At Dynamo, the shift towards inclusion has been slower. Anti-immigrant sentiment and nostalgia for old identities sometimes coexist with loyalty. Bamer recalls how a Nigerian player was renamed by fans with a German nickname because they could not pronounce his last name. \u201cEverybody loved him,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I always had the feeling it was also a little bit of making a joke out of his name.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Germany has 84 million people, 25 million with immigrant backgrounds, yet many including AfD supporters resist diversity.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At ten years old, while kicking a soccer ball on a field in Berlin, Nabil Rayk could already sense he was the \u201cother.” The opposing team\u2019s parents, \u201cthe Proper Germans\u201d as he puts it, would shout insults from the sidelines. \u201cKick that Arab, kick that N-word\u201d he recalled.\u00a0 \u201cFor them,\u201d Nabil said, \u201csometimes sport is<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5149,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5149"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":595,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions\/595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}