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Cacau (center) has played 23 international matches for Germany.
Between 2016 and 2021 he was the integration officer of the DFB
Photo:
Christof Koepsel / Bongarts / Getty Images
You can have a good chat with the former national soccer player Cacau.
Cacau reads a lot.
He listens to other opinions.
And he is not someone who gives simple answers to complicated questions.
His eloquence and curiosity, but above all his life story, made the native Brazilian an obvious and apparently ideal choice for the German Football Association (DFB) when it came to filling the honorary position of the DFB's integration officer in 2016.
"Who else but Cacau?" Asked the DFB on its homepage at the time.
DFB President Reinhard Grindel called Cacau a "stroke of luck for the DFB and all of German football".
And sure: who could - at first glance - convey the topic of integration better?
At the age of 18, Cacau left a poor family with an alcoholic father in Brazil for Germany to make it from the national league to the German national team.
He was naturalized in 2008 and once got six votes in the mayoral election in his place of residence, Korb not far from Stuttgart, even though he had not run.
And finally he was part of the 2010 World Cup team around Mesut Özil, who gave the world an image of Germany as a multicultural nation.
After a good four years, Cacau is now finishing his work at the DFB.
The 39-year-old former striker of VfB Stuttgart is now the managing director of a sports agency, and that is not compatible with the statutes of the DFB.
The question now is whether Cacau's work was really a stroke of luck for the association's efforts to integrate.
"Too weak" and "too little emphasis"
You can also hear critical voices from the regional associations.
Cacau tried hard.
But he brought in few ideas and when it really mattered, he didn't show a profile: "Cacau was too weak as an integration officer, he didn't exploit his position enough and generated too little emphasis," says a functionary who works for the DFB Cacau worked together on integration.
"I would have liked him to push forward even more on some issues."
So was Cacau's time at the DFB a wasted opportunity?
Especially when it comes to the issue of racism, Cacau often had too hesitant attitude - and sometimes one that harmed the integration work.
When there were racist attacks by German fans against national players Leroy Sané and Ilkay Gündogan during an international match against Serbia in March 2019, Cacau called this an isolated case and put it into perspective: “If I were to experience something like this with my son on the sports field, I would defend myself against it, confront them.
But that was it then.
I don't have to make it bigger than it is. "
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Mesut Özil made 96 international appearances for Germany.
In 2018 he resigned with allegations of racism
Photo: Ina Fassbender / dpa
Mesut Özil's case also fell during Cacau's time at the DFB.
The association was faced with serious allegations.
Özil accused the then President Grindel of racism and the DFB for not protecting him from racist hostility in the affair about the joint photo of Özil with the Turkish ruler Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The DFB top around Grindel and DFB director Oliver Bierhoff, who indirectly blamed Özil for the embarrassing preliminary round at the World Cup, had the largest share in the association's fatal handling of the affair.
When Özil raised the racism allegation against the association, Cacau was also asked.
As an integration officer, he could have built bridges.
But he called the photo "an own goal" and Özil "naive" for allowing himself to be used as an instrument for Erdogan's election campaign.
The racism allegations are "simply wrong".
Although the association made mistakes in dealing with the affair, "I don't see a racism problem at the DFB," said Cacau.
"From my point of view, I have always taken a clear position: as with Özil"
In the regional associations, the Özil case in particular is viewed critically: "His statements tended to damage the matter," says the official.
In an interview with SPIEGEL, Cacau contradicts the statement that he did not show a profile in the important moments: “From my point of view, I always took a clear position, for example with the Mesut Özil case.
For some, my statements were inconsistent.
But I stand by what I said. ”Maybe he wasn't always right.
"But one thing is clear: I have always been clear about racism."
“Everything I have said on all subjects over the past four years has been my own attitude and opinion.
I was not asked to do so by the DFB «
Cacau
When he said after the racism incident at the 2019 international match that one shouldn't make it bigger, he was concerned with something else: »That you don't give people the platform.
I was misunderstood, ”says Cacau.
He does not think that he was too much in line with the top of the DFB: “Everything I have said on all topics in the four years was my own attitude and opinion.
I wasn't asked by the DFB, «he says.
He tried to give impulses and to be the contact person in many on-site meetings, especially for the grassroots.
The integration concept of the DFB, which was already ten years old, was revised and the focus was placed on the DFB's U-teams: "What does it mean to be a national player, regardless of one's own roots?"
Hardly any people with a migration background on the committees
When Cacau started playing at the DFB shortly after the end of his playing career, he had decided to tackle a structural problem: the lack of diversity in the committees in the umbrella organization and in the regional associations.
"That has to change," said Cacau.
"People with a migration background must see that people from them sit on the association and association bodies."
Around every fifth member of the DFB has a migration background.
But little has changed at the decision-making level.
When Fritz Keller was elected the new President at the DFB Bundestag in September 2019, there was only one man with a migrant background among the electors.
Today Cacau says: “Unfortunately, too little has been done.
The DFB has to open up.
And more volunteers have to get involved in this area. "
The DFB has done a lot for integration - and not just bold things like the award of an integration prize.
Especially in the high phase of 2015 and 2016, when many people from Syria and other countries fled to Germany, the association helped with the integration of refugees with the campaign “1: 0 for a welcome”.
The Özil case, however, set the DFB back.
Cacau once told of a proverb that he believes has come true in his work as integration officer: "A tree that falls makes more noise than a forest that grows." During his time at the DFB there were quite a few Given noise.
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