It's 28 years since a player from Eintracht Frankfurt was called up to the DFB squad for a World Cup: Andreas Köpke and Maurizio Gaudino traveled to the USA with Berti Vogts' team in 1994.

Mario Götze and Kevin Trapp will follow in their footsteps at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

With the two Germans, a total of six SGE players will be on site professionally when what is probably the most controversial World Cup in Germany begins on November 20th.

In line with the current table position of Oliver Glasner's team, these are the fourth most in the league.

Those responsible could be correspondingly curious about the major event on the Persian Gulf.

But there is no trace of anticipation: "Don't let them hurt themselves," commented board member Philipp Reschke succinctly on the nomination of the world championship drivers.

"I won't look a minute"

Reschke left open whether he would follow the World Cup on the screen during a panel discussion on Thursday evening under the motto "A World Cup in the wrong place?"

The event was organized by the Eintracht Frankfurt Museum in cooperation with the fan department.

Presenter and former Eintracht player Klaus "Beve" Beverungen announced to the around 50 guests present that it would be a "little fun evening" before he welcomed migration researcher Sebastian Sons and fan representative Dario Minden to the podium alongside Reschke.

Minden gave more insight into his own television consumption than Reschke: "I will not watch a minute of the World Cup." In mid-September, the fan department board caused a nationwide sensation when he strongly recommended that the Qatari ambassador during a DFB human rights congress to get used to it that as a man he had sex with other men.

Otherwise, the ambassador should please keep your hands off football.

Minden added on Thursday evening: "Criticism of this World Cup is of course also very clearly aimed at FIFA and the DFB."

"If the DFB had said at the time: 'Qatar had the worst technical report, we know the reports on the labor market there.

If labor reforms aren't implemented by deadline X, we're not coming', that could have made a difference.”

Use public outrage

Minden confirmed that the fan curves had a much more intact sense of human rights than the officials.

They have the progressive momentum that associations lack: “Our role as fans is to break this image calculation that autocratic regimes set up when they invest billions in football out of political calculation to build a beautiful facade.

If the image change through sports washing succeeds, then good night.”

Instead, care must be taken "that these players realize that their strategy doesn't work in Germany." can".

This includes, for example, “that same-sex love must not be included in the criminal code of the applicant country”.

Minden's club, Frankfurter Eintracht, is also trying to do business in autocratic states: as a result of the internationalization strategy, a wholly owned subsidiary of the club moved into its offices in Beijing in 2018.

Reschke calls Frankfurt's approach to gaining a foothold in the Chinese market through trainer training or student exchange programs a "mass sport approach".

Reschke does not share concerns about not being able to allow criticism - for example about the suppression of the Uyghur minority or the country's Taiwan policy - for reasons of market logic: "The commitment does not make us dependent, we will not be silenced. "