“It is important today to show racism the red card,” she told Deutschlandfunk.
However, she does not see this as part of a seamless monitoring, said Probst, who has already read remarks by footballers and coaches during the World Cup 2010 by watching their lips move.
“Footballers are involved in a commercial programme that serves entertainment.” At the same time, the former politician of the Pirate Party insisted on publishing only statements from athletes and coaches that she was sure she had understood correctly.
Her idea comes in the wake of an incident in the English football league. Chelsea had issued six fans with stadium ban, after they had been convicted by lip-readers because they racially insulted Manchester City black player Raheem Sterling eight months ago. One of the six, Colin Wing (60) was accused of calling the player a “fucking black cunt” and excluded from the stadium for life.
Lip readers from 121 Captions, who specialise in forensic lipreading for the British police and Crown Prosecution Service, had studied the footage.
In Spain, there are also such measures against racism in football stadiums.