A Turkish player made the ‘wolf salute’, symbolic of the Turkish ultranationalist ‘Grey Wolves’, Germany’s largest right-wing extremist movement, after scoring in a European Cup match between Turkey and Austria in the German city of Leipzig yesterday.
In recent weeks, the wolf salute has been made by Turkish football fans on numerous occasions, prompting repeated calls for a ban of the Grey Wolves organisation in Germany. The Confederation of Kurdish Communities in Germany (KON-MED) and the Society for Threatened Peoples are among those demanding a ban, citing the organisation’s roles in promoting ethnic nationalism and supporting Turkey’s military actions against Kurdish groups.
The Grey Wolves’ symbolic salute derives from ancient Turkish mythology as a representation of their purported strength and aggression, promoting a vision of a greater Turkish empire stretching from Vienna to China known as ‘Turan’. “The supporters of the Grey Wolves deny the genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 and are responsible for numerous pogroms and other crimes against non-Turkish ethnic and religious groups inside and outside Turkey”, the Society for Threatened Peoples added in their statement.
The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) has since launched an investigation for “inappropriate behaviour” into the incident. Apart from the investigation numerous government officials, non-governmental organisations and UEFA itself have raised voices of concern regarding the display of far-right-fascist symbols during matches Turkey plays in.
The German interior minister Nancy Faeser’s condemnation of the player’s gesture is not considered credible by many as Faeser herself has in the past been accused of delaying Germany’s ban on the ‘Grey Wolves’ and has even posted pictures of herself posing amongst a group of students showing the wolf salute.
