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Lars Stindle
Photo: Ina Fassbender / AFP
Shortly before the start of the World Cup in Qatar, Lars Stindl, captain of Borussia Mönchengladbach and former national team player, calls on football professionals to show their composure.
»With this World Cup, our football will be used for non-sporting purposes.
As players, we have a certain obligation towards society to at least draw attention to the circumstances of this World Cup.
Sport can move politically," said the eleven-time national player in the SPIEGEL podcast "Sold out.
Qatar, football and big money.« He and his colleagues should be aware »that we professionals can attract this attention«.
Stindl will be on duty at the World Cup as an expert for magenta TV, the channel will broadcast all 64 games of the tournament.
The statements made by Qatar's World Cup ambassador, Khalid Salman, on homosexuality were "disturbing," according to Stindl.
"I absolutely cannot understand how one can carry such ideas within oneself." In a ZDF documentary, Salman described homosexuality as "mental damage".
Although he is looking forward to the World Cup, said Stindl, he would have wished "that it would take place in a country with more football tradition, with different conditions and with a better human rights situation." The situation of guest workers in Qatar should be allowed cannot be assessed solely with a view to the World Cup construction sites.
»I read that only two percent of guest workers in Qatar work on the World Cup construction sites.
When the whole world looks at these construction sites, there is of course an improvement.
But the question is: How is it shaping up across the country or on the other construction sites?”
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