Germany Olympic soccer team walks off pitch after alleged racial abuse
Germany’s Olympic soccer players walked off the pitch on Saturday, after one of their players was “racially abused,” the German Football Association (DFB) said.
Germany was playing against Honduras in a friendly match in preparation for the Olympics.
The game, “a final practice before taking to the big stage,” according to the DFB, was played behind closed doors, and it consisted of three 30-minute periods.
Honduras led after the first period, but Germany scored an equalizer during the final third.
With five minutes remaining, German players “left the pitch after Jordan Torunarigha was racially abused,” DFB wrote in a tweet.
Torunarigha, a 23-year-old defender, is Black.
The team hasn’t provided any details on the incident, but German coach Stefan Kuntz said that, “When one of our players is racially abused, playing on is not an option.”
The Honduran Football Federation acknowledged the incident on Twitter, but called the situation a “misunderstanding on the pitch.”
The game took place in Wakayama, Japan. It was a warm-up for their Tokyo 2020 campaign, which starts on July 22 against defending gold medalist Brazil.
