Turkish football fans have made calls to collectively show the wolf salute at the 2024 European Football Championship (Euro 2024) match between Turkey and the Netherlands. The fans have been emboldened by the announcement that Turkish President Erdoğan will attend the match. The salute is a sign of the Turkish ultranationalist Grey Wolves movement, responsible for hundreds of attempted and executed murders on minorities and leftist personalities in Turkey and also in Germany.
The first videos of the Turkish national team arriving in Berlin have gone viral on social media, after the footballers were greeted by fans with the wolf salute.
Meanwhile, the Kurdish community in Germany, among others, has called for a ban on the Grey Wolves in an open letter to Interior Minister Nancy Faeser. Another petition demanding a ban of the organisation directed at the German parliament has been signed over 7,500 times. The Grey Wolves and its affiliated organisations are already banned in several European countries such as France and Austria, and are considered the largest right-wing extremist movement in Germany.
The wolf salute was displayed at Turkey’s previous match at the Euros, most publicly by Turkish footballer Merih Demiral. The governing football body, UEFA, banned Demiral for two matches after his gesture, saying the footballer had failed “to comply with the general principles of conduct”.
The gesture has caused diplomatic tensions between Berlin and Ankara. After the German Federal Interior Minister condemned Demiral’s actions, Turkey summoned the German ambassador on Wednesday and labelled the German reactions as xenophobic. In response, the German Foreign Office announced that the incident would be discussed with the Turkish ambassador in Germany.
The German Police Trade Union (GdP) has called on fans to refrain from making the controversial gesture and has labelled the match between Turkey and the Netherlands a “high-risk game”.
