Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt of the CSU rejected a boycott of the football World Cup as a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies.
“I cannot understand calls for a boycott of the World Cup” he told the RND. “I still remember very clearly how the debates about the World Cup in Qatar unfolded, and I have long advocated the view that football should be played and that people should stop trying to make politics out of it. That would also be my advice to everyone who is now thinking about this issue”.
Dobrindt also expressed criticism of the actions of the U.S. immigration enforcement agency ICE, which has recently been at the center of controversy related to Trump. “The images we see in the United States are unsettling to all of us” he said. “Such conduct is absolutely unimaginable for professionally trained and operational police forces such as those in Germany, and it would in no way be tolerated by politically responsible parties”. A similar stance had been previously voiced by Defence Minister Boris Pistorius.
