Kuntz's Olympic squad walks off test ground after racial abuse incident
A pre-Olympic exhibition between the German and Honduran national teams ended prematurely after alleged racial abuse directed at Jordan Torunarigha.
German football fans won't soon forget the 2020 DFB Pokal fixture after which Hertha BSC's Jordan Torunarigha was taunted with monkey chants and racial epithets. Another incident involving the 23-year-old German international of Nigerian descent has now led to a pitch walk-off in a pre-Olympic test fixture.
An exhibition match scheduled for three half-hour periods concluded five minutes from its scheduled close after Stefan Kuntz's DFB Olympic squad declined to play further. In an official statement, the German FA released a statement confirming that racial insults directed at Torunarigha by the Honduran team were the reasons for this.
The Honduran Football Association released their own statement labelling the incident "a misunderstanding." Germany U21 trainer Kuntz noted that the Honduran team did eventually apologize for the abuse and that this apology was ultimately accepted. Insofar as the public relations spin was concerned, however, Kuntz made clear he didn't quite care for the Honduran FA's classification.
"I don't know how you reacted when you came home with an "F" (or 6,0) [on your school report card]," Kuntz said, "I used to tell my mother that it was a 'misunderstanding' between my teacher and me. Best not to comment on that further."
Torunarigha expressed support for the decision with a response on the official twitter feed. German Olympic team captain Maximilian Arnold of VfL Wolfsburg also called his team's actions "the correct statement", while noting that Torunarigha and everyone else was prepared to put the entire episode behind them.
Torunarigha features in the new ZDF Sportstudio documentary "Schwarze Adler", which explores the experiences of black players representing Germany.
Das Spiel musste fünf Minuten vor Ende beim Stand von 1:1 abgebrochen werden. Nachdem unser Spieler Jordan Torunarigha rassistisch beleidigt wurde, hat die deutsche Mannschaft gemeinsam das Feld verlassen. #WirfuerD #GERHON
— Team Deutschland | Fußball 🇩🇪 (@DFB_Junioren) July 17, 2021
Wie rassistisch ist der deutsche Fußball?
— ZDF sportstudio (@sportstudio) June 15, 2021
In der Dokumentation "Schwarze Adler" wird die Geschichte schwarzer Nationalspieler*innen im weißen #DFB-Trikot erzählt.
Zur Doku👉https://t.co/wjLY3H2b0A@GeraldAsamoah14 @RealOwo @Jordanynany @AnthonyBaffoe @jimmyhartwigorg pic.twitter.com/ermGZNTaTO