Soccer – Frankfurt am Main – Soccer girls with a migration background: “Huge potential” – Sport
Frankfurt / Main (dpa) – The German Football Association wants to promote youth work with girls with a migration background. “Obviously that’s a huge potential. But we just don’t have the people to accompany these young athletes at the moment.
Because of the traditional structures there, there are often still many reservations about letting girls play football. The association has supported various projects in this regard in the past. “Further measures are currently being planned so that the topic can pick up speed,” said Mammitzsch.
There are currently only two players with a migration background in the selection of the German vice European champions: Sara Doorsoun and Nicole Anyomi, both of whom play for Eintracht Frankfurt.
The human rights activist Tugba Tekkal runs the “Scoring Girls” project in Cologne, Berlin and northern Iraq. For “girls who didn’t have the opportunity to play football in their home countries or who were forbidden to do so,” explained the former Bundesliga player for Hamburger SV and 1. FC Köln. The offer is also aimed at girls who were born in Germany and “nevertheless have the feeling that they don’t belong”.
The 37-year-old also does a lot of convincing in the families of young footballers. “The biggest fear parents have is uprooting,” Tekkal said. “It’s very important that they are told that integration is not a one-way street. And that they open doors for their daughters like they do for their sons.”
The DFB strategy “Women in football FF27” includes training more coaches “in order to be able to pick up these girls,” said Mammitzsch. “In addition, there is often a lack of separate changing facilities in the clubs, among other things we have not had to use visible role models more than once – there are also a few points that we are tackling in this regard.”
© dpa-infocom, dpa:221101-99-336654/2