Ilkay Gündogan, Shkodran Mustafi, Lukas Podolski and Christoph Kramer, who are all travelling to Georgia for Germany’s Euro 2016 qualifier on Sunday (18:30 CEST), all visited the DFB and Mercedes-Benz integration awards on Thursday evening. Their appearance at the awards ceremony was the highlight of the evening and brought to a close a week on integration. All four players took time in Frankfurt to speak to DFB.de.
Gündogan: “I see being made up of two halves as something positive”
Gündogan revealed on the stage: “I’m Germany but I have Turkish roots. Both make me. I see being made up of two halves as something positive.” The current Gladbach and soon to be Leverkusen man Christoph Kramer said that different coloured skin or different origins had no effect as he became a professional footballer: “It never bothered me. It’s good that the foundations are dealing with it.”
Podolski remembered his time at a Brazilian school during the World Cup last summer: “I obviously remember the win, the final in Rio but also this moment. When you hug a small Brazilian child then there’s no way you can’t get emotional. I’ve saved the pictures on my laptop.”
Shkodran Mustafi, who has Albanian roots and has played football in Hamburg, England and Italy and now plays for FC Valencia in Spain, spoke about the “fun you get from getting to know a new culture,” whilst national team caretaker Oliver Bierhoff believes: “Our national players are the best ambassadors for integration.”
Niersbach jokes about Alaba
This was the eighth time the DFB and its general sponsor Mercedes-Benz had held the integration awards in Frankfurt. Schools, clubs and projects have been rewarded since 2007 for their diversity and participation within football. This year the prizes were awarded to SV Lindenau, the Geschwister-Scholl school in Seelze and Sportkreis Stuttgart. The special awards were shared between FC St. Pauli and the Hamburg club “Netzwerk,” that was set up in 1999 by Reinhold Beckmann.
DFB President Wolfgang Niersbach joked that a big mistake was made a few years ago in terms of integration: “We missed the chance to award David Alaba German citizenship.” The Bayern defender has become Austria’s Sportsman of the Year, ahead of skiers, and Niersbach was joking as he moaned about the situation.
Around 150 guests were in attendance, including Thomas Berthold (World Champion in 1990), Bibiana Steinhaus (twice awarded World referee of the year), Mainz 05 President Harald Strutz and DFB general secretary Helmut Sandrock. “Integration is an ongoing topic,” Niersbach said at the beginning of the evening. “When you think that it has lost its timeliness then you’re always brought back down to reality.”
Minister Özoğuz: “Refugees should play football”
SV Lindenau from Leipzig and FSV Dornberg are two clubs that have successfully tackled integration of refugees. A lot of other not well—known clubs are also doing the same, which is why the DFB has published a leaflet on the organisational, the legal and the everyday questions that clubs may have.
Aydan Özoğuz, the state minister for migration and refugees from Berlin, is excited with this dedication to amateur football: “Children and teenagers shouldn’t be sitting in their accommodation and waiting for the day to end. They should be playing football.” Around 200,000 people applied for asylum in Germany last year. Özoğuz expects an increase on that number this year due to the wars and crises across the globe.
Group photo with the World champions
The clubs in the Bundesliga showed their support last weekend for the campaign “Mach einen Strich durch Vorurteile” (Draw a line through prejudice). TV adverts, that included Ilkay Gündogan and women’s world footballer of the year Nadine Keßler, were shown before the Bundesliga games and before the friendly against Australia.
At the end of the awards, the DFB members, the four Germany internationals and the ten clubs, schools and project winners got together for a group photo. Above them was the motto of the integration awards: “Many cultures, one passion.”
created by mmc/fs
Ilkay Gündogan, Shkodran Mustafi, Lukas Podolski and Christoph Kramer, who are all travelling to Georgia for Germany’s Euro 2016 qualifier on Sunday (18:30 CEST), all visited the DFB and Mercedes-Benz integration awards on Thursday evening. Their appearance at the awards ceremony was the highlight of the evening and brought to a close a week on integration. All four players took time in Frankfurt to speak to DFB.de.
Gündogan: “I see being made up of two halves as something positive”
Gündogan revealed on the stage: “I’m Germany but I have Turkish roots. Both make me. I see being made up of two halves as something positive.” The current Gladbach and soon to be Leverkusen man Christoph Kramer said that different coloured skin or different origins had no effect as he became a professional footballer: “It never bothered me. It’s good that the foundations are dealing with it.”
Podolski remembered his time at a Brazilian school during the World Cup last summer: “I obviously remember the win, the final in Rio but also this moment. When you hug a small Brazilian child then there’s no way you can’t get emotional. I’ve saved the pictures on my laptop.”
Shkodran Mustafi, who has Albanian roots and has played football in Hamburg, England and Italy and now plays for FC Valencia in Spain, spoke about the “fun you get from getting to know a new culture,” whilst national team caretaker Oliver Bierhoff believes: “Our national players are the best ambassadors for integration.”
Niersbach jokes about Alaba
This was the eighth time the DFB and its general sponsor Mercedes-Benz had held the integration awards in Frankfurt. Schools, clubs and projects have been rewarded since 2007 for their diversity and participation within football. This year the prizes were awarded to SV Lindenau, the Geschwister-Scholl school in Seelze and Sportkreis Stuttgart. The special awards were shared between FC St. Pauli and the Hamburg club “Netzwerk,” that was set up in 1999 by Reinhold Beckmann.
DFB President Wolfgang Niersbach joked that a big mistake was made a few years ago in terms of integration: “We missed the chance to award David Alaba German citizenship.” The Bayern defender has become Austria’s Sportsman of the Year, ahead of skiers, and Niersbach was joking as he moaned about the situation.
Around 150 guests were in attendance, including Thomas Berthold (World Champion in 1990), Bibiana Steinhaus (twice awarded World referee of the year), Mainz 05 President Harald Strutz and DFB general secretary Helmut Sandrock. “Integration is an ongoing topic,” Niersbach said at the beginning of the evening. “When you think that it has lost its timeliness then you’re always brought back down to reality.”
Minister Özoğuz: “Refugees should play football”
SV Lindenau from Leipzig and FSV Dornberg are two clubs that have successfully tackled integration of refugees. A lot of other not well—known clubs are also doing the same, which is why the DFB has published a leaflet on the organisational, the legal and the everyday questions that clubs may have.
Aydan Özoğuz, the state minister for migration and refugees from Berlin, is excited with this dedication to amateur football: “Children and teenagers shouldn’t be sitting in their accommodation and waiting for the day to end. They should be playing football.” Around 200,000 people applied for asylum in Germany last year. Özoğuz expects an increase on that number this year due to the wars and crises across the globe.
Group photo with the World champions
The clubs in the Bundesliga showed their support last weekend for the campaign “Mach einen Strich durch Vorurteile” (Draw a line through prejudice). TV adverts, that included Ilkay Gündogan and women’s world footballer of the year Nadine Keßler, were shown before the Bundesliga games and before the friendly against Australia.
At the end of the awards, the DFB members, the four Germany internationals and the ten clubs, schools and project winners got together for a group photo. Above them was the motto of the integration awards: “Many cultures, one passion.”
