- Title: Chocolate bar wrappers ignite German row over racism
- Date: 25th May 2016
- Summary: BERLIN, GERMANY (MAY 25, 2016) (REUTERS) WOMAN AT SUPERMARKET VARIOUS OF KINDER BARS ON SHELVES SHOWING THE PICTURES OF NATIONAL TEAM PLAYERS JEROME BOATENG, ILKAY GUENDOGAN, MARIO GOMEZ AND CHRISTOPH KRAMER (FROM LEFT TO RIGHT) CLOSE UP OF BAR WITH CHILD PICTURE OF BOATENG CLOSE UP OF BAR WITH CHILD PICTURE OF GUENDOGAN BARS ON SHELF CLOSE UP OF BAR WITH CHILD PICTURE OF KRAMER PERSON LOOKING AT BAR ASCONA, SWITZERLAND (MAY 25, 2016) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF DFB (GERMAN FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION) PRESIDENT REINHARD GRINDEL AT NEWS CONFERENCE JOURNALIST TAKING NOTES (SOUNDBITE) (German) DFB (GERMAN FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION) PRESIDENT, REINHARD GRINDEL, SAYING: "The German national team is one of the best examples of successful integration. And millions of people in Germany are proud of this team because of how they are. For us, it is about the performance and not the origin of the player or their religion. And we shouldn't say anything else about these tasteless comments." BERLIN, GERMANY (MAY 25, 2016) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF GERMAN NATIONAL TEAM PLAYERS PICTURES ON DUPLO BARS CHOCOLATE SHELF AT STORE VARIOUS OF FOOTBALL FANS ACCESSORIES AT STORE VARIOUS OF PRODUCTS DISPLAYING CHOCOLATES WITH THE GERMAN FLAG VARIOUS OF ENTRANCE TO STORE
- Embargoed: 9th June 2016 16:51
- Keywords: EURO 2016 soccer Germany Pegida Kinder
- Location: BERLIN, GERMANY AND ASCONA, SWITZERLAND
- City: BERLIN, GERMANY AND ASCONA, SWITZERLAND
- Country: Germany
- Topics: Soccer,Sport
- Reuters ID: LVA0014JB58AN
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:Online debate raged in Germany on Wednesday (May 26) after supporters of anti-Islam group Pegida criticised a company decision to print images of non-white soccer players on its chocolate bar boxes instead of the usual picture of a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy.
Italian confectionery group Ferrero decided to temporarily change the pictures on its Kinder Schokolade in Germany in a special edition ahead of the European Soccer Championship, which kicks off on June 10 in France.
The new packaging shows childhood pictures of players such as Jerome Boateng, son of a Ghanaian immigrant, and Ilkay Gundogan, whose parents were born in Turkey. It also includes white players such as Mario Goetze and Christoph Kramer.
On Twitter, the hashtag #Kinderschokolade was among those trending most in Germany on Wednesday. Under the hashtag #cutesolidarity, users started to share their own childhood pictures.
Ferrero's special edition packaging won praise from most users on the company's official Facebook page, but it also drew criticism from some Pegida supporters.
"They will stop at nothing. Are they really being sold like that? Or is that a joke?" the account operator of Pegida BW Bodensee wrote in a post next to a picture of chocolate boxes with Boateng and Guendogan as children.
Commenting on the post, one user wrote: "The team, there is nothing national about it anymore."
Germany won the soccer World Cup in 1990 with an all-white team. The squad that won in 2014 included Boateng as well as Sami Khedira, whose father is Tunisian, and Mesut Ozil, grandson of a Turkish "Gastarbeiter" (guest worker).
A Pegida spokesman could not immediately be reached to comment on the Facebook posts and tweets.
Reinhard Grindel, head of the German football association DFB, said the Pegida supporters' comments were distasteful.
"The German national soccer team is one of the best examples of successful integration and millions of people in Germany are proud of this team because it is as it is," Grindel said.
The German satirical magazine Titanic published a fictitious Pegida special edition of Ferrero's Kinder Schokolade online.
"Ferrero is backing down: Pegida edition now available," it joked, next to a chocolate packaging with a baby picture of Adolf Hitler.
A spokeswoman for Ferrero Germany said the company was strictly against any form of discrimination or xenophobia.
The account operator of Pegida BW Bodensee, when contacted by Reuters via messaging, said that he or she had received death threats since the post went viral on social media, adding: "I don't know if that is appropriate." - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2016. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None