Germany’s Bundestag bars AfD MPs from its football team
Could the sporting ban precede a political one?
EVERY TUESDAY evening when Germany’s Bundestag is in session, a gaggle of cross-party mps discard their suits, clamber into a team bus and decamp to a football pitch in east Berlin where they take on amateur all-comers. Founded in 1961, and open to current and former male and female mps, fc Bundestag’s roster has included such luminaries as Joschka Fischer and the late Wolfgang Schäuble. It presents itself as a place where political rivals can set aside their differences in the interests of beating their opponents on the pitch, raising money for good causes in the process. Its website proudly declares the team “Ambassadors of Parliament”.
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This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Gap on the right wing ”
Europe
July 5th 2025- In Putin’s Moscow, a summer of death and distraction
- A pragmatic amnesty for separatists benefits Catalonia
- Turkey’s strongman is becoming Donald Trump’s point man
- An infestation of ticks menaces Istanbul
- Germany’s Bundestag bars AfD MPs from its football team
- The sleeping policeman at the heart of Europe
From the July 5th 2025 edition
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Ukraine’s political infighting gets nasty
As Trump starves it of arms, there is turmoil inside the government
Turkey’s strongman is becoming Donald Trump’s point man
But renewed war with Iran would put the honeymoon with Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the test
An infestation of ticks menaces Istanbul
And mosquitos are a growing problem too
The sleeping policeman at the heart of Europe
Enforcement of EU law has become an afterthought
A pragmatic amnesty for separatists benefits Catalonia
But it carries costs for the rule of law
America’s ominous new halt on weapons to Ukraine
It may reflect dwindling stocks but Ukraine thinks it is being pushed to make political concessions