Spectre of far-Right politics hangs over Euro 2024
One small section of Austria fans held up a 'Defend Europe' banner – the same slogan adopted by an extremist network calling for mobilisation against immigrants
On the surface, this European Championship offers quite the advert for the happy coexistence of nations. Here in Cologne, there is a nightly clamour of Turkish expats leaning on their car horns to toast their team’s progress to the round of 16, and of Georgian fans drumming out rhythmic folk songs, barely able to believe they are in town for a knockout tie against Spain. And yet all this joy of life, this Lebenslust, masks sinister tensions. For 50 miles north in Essen, the far-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is mobilising for its federal party conference, and the mood is nothing like so convivial.
Warnings are in place for England supporters attending Sunday night’s match in nearby Gelsenkirchen, with thousands of protesters expected to condemn the presence of AfD, the second largest political force in the country after recent parliamentary elections. Elements of the party’s rhetoric can be eye-watering, with former leader Alexander Gauland notoriously having described the Third Reich as “just a speck of birds … in over 1,000 years of successful German history”. Set alongside the official motto of Euro 2024 – “United by football, united in the heart of Europe”, these pronouncements become ever more provocative.
‘Sporting powderkeg could explode at any moment’
The sharpness of the rightward lurch is by no means confined to Germany. Before the end of this tournament, it is conceivable that the French far-Right could enter government for the first time since 1944. Last month, Austria’s Freedom Party, whose members had a habit until 2017 of wearing cornflowers once used to denote Nazi sympathies, came top of a nationwide ballot for the first time. To suggest that such forces are extrinsic to football would be naive. On the contrary, this political realignment is creating the type of sporting powderkeg that could explode at any moment.
Take the French camp, where barely a day has gone by without some dire warning from a player. Kylian Mbappé stoked the fire when he urged his compatriots not to vote for “extremes”, declaring: “I don’t want to represent a country that doesn’t represent my values, or our values.” While he did not explicitly name Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) as the “extreme”, the subtext was self-evident. In any case, Marcus Thuram, son of World Cup winner Lilian, soon spelt it out, arguing that it was imperative for him “as a citizen to fight so that the RN does not pass”.
The polarisation in Austria has found echoes here, too, with the success of Ralf Rangnick’s side allegedly inspiring one group of fans to hold up a “Defend Europe” banner: the same slogan adopted by the Identitarian movement, a pan-European extremist network calling for mobilisation against immigrants. These flare-ups in far-Right rhetoric at games might be sporadic, but they are unmistakable. Hungarian fans unfurled an “anti-Antifa” banner, while some Ukrainians brandished the flag of the Third Assault Brigade, an offshoot of the far-Right Azov regiment. During the match between Georgia and Turkey, Turkish supporters in several host cities were seen giving a wolf salute in honour of the hardline nationalist group “Grey Wolves”, the largest extremist organisation in Germany and one where members have been actively involved in attacking Kurds.
Complicating the picture have been the intra-Balkan hostilities, with this championship the first occasion that Serbia, Albania and Croatia have all appeared in the same senior finals. While all three were eliminated in the group stage, their convergence did not pass off without incident. Mirlind Daku, the Albanian striker, whipped up his team-mates by chanting “f--- Macedonia” and “f--- Serbia” into a megaphone, only apologising when Uefa intervened.
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At the height of the diplomatic dispute, Serbia threatened to pull out of the Euros if Albania and Croatia were not punished for the abuse from the stands, which reportedly called for the killing of Serbs. In Munich, Serbian hardliners aroused consternation by raising Russian flags and singing Vladimir Putin’s name.
Hungary have hardly been blameless either. Prior to their early exit, Hungarian ultras were filmed promoting a “free Gigi” message: a reference to Gigi D’Agostino, the Italian DJ whose L’Amour Toujours anthem was blacklisted when it was co-opted by far-Right extremists.
These controversies, though, do not always take place on the periphery. While most Germans might be swept up in goodwill towards Die Mannschaft given the team’s imperious form so far, the hosts’ campaign was prefaced by an extraordinary episode in which state broadcaster ARD published a survey asking participants whether they would prefer more white players. Joshua Kimmich, the captain, immediately condemned the exercise as “absolutely racist”, raging that it was “madness for a public broadcaster to ask such a question”. Julian Nagelsmann, his manager, responded: “It’s insane. I feel we have to wake up. We’re playing a European Championship for everyone in the country. And I hope I never have to read about such a c--p survey again.”
The premise of the survey called to mind some of AfD’s most unpleasant excesses. At Euro 2016, when Germany lost their semi-final to France, then deputy leader Beatrix von Storch said: “Maybe next time the German national team should play again.” She drew withering censure but seemed to be articulating her party’s position, with the incorrigible Gauland saying of Jérôme Boateng, the German centre-back of Ghanaian descent: “People find him good as a footballer, but they don’t want to have Boateng as a neighbour.”
Now a party with a history of racist statements about the national team is staging its conference in the midst of a tournament outwardly wedded to the language of unity. It is a reminder that impressions can be deceptive, and that the lines of fracture in this competition hold up a mirror to the divided continent everyone is meant to be celebrating.
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