“Just take the AfD. It says things that are completely unspeakable, and nobody punishes them for it. On the contrary, someone like Mr. [Björn] Höcke gets almost 25 percent of the vote, ” he told German daily Die Welt.
The phenomenal rise of the AfD, which came in second place with 23,4 percent of the vote in Thuringia last week, is attributed to Höcke, with the party more than doubling its share of voters since the last state election.
During the match between the Hessian clubs FSV Münster and the TV Semd, FSV player Hayri Güven beat the referee unconscious on Sunday after being sent off. The injured referee had to be flown to hospital by helicopter. Even days after the attack, the offender has still not apologized to his victim, the father of the referee told tabloid Bild.
Meanwhile, Schenk emphasized – without irony – that it was not effective to assign the problem of violence to a particular group. “Idiots are everywhere, no matter where they come from.”
But in recent months there have been repeated violent attacks on referees in amateur football. The perpetrators almost all have foreign roots.
The incident comes after the Berlin Football Federation cancelled all matches in the Berlin-Liga, the German capital city’s highest league of football and sixth tier of German football.
The matches were cancelled after the league’s referees announced they were going on strike for the weekend due to a spike in violence against referees. Some 53 attacks have been reported this season alone.