Turkish president RB T Adan is visiting
Germany today to watch turkey's
quarterfinal match against the
Netherlands in the European football
championships adan's visit comes after
Turkish player Mar demiral made a hand
gesture associated with the Turkish
far-right group The Grey Wolves during a
match against Austria the European
Football Association UEFA imposed a two-
match ban on Deal including Saturday's
game Berlin Police Stopped Turkish fans
parading to this Stadium ahead of the
game for making the gesture on mass the
match has been overshadowed by a
diplomatic rout between Berlin and
Ankara regarding this
gesture DW's Danel Barcelona is at one
of the fan zones uh in Berlin da tonight
turkey take on the Netherlands but
leading up to this match much of the
focus has been on uh nonf football
issues
right yeah definitely the match has been
a little bit overshadowed by what has
been going on off the pitch um so the
last game against Austria Turkish player
medy demal in goal celebration he made a
wolf gesture with his hands now that's
often been associated with the far right
so UEFA they opened up an investigation
into this gesture and they ended up
suspending him for two games now that
sparked a little bit of political outcry
between turkey and Germany um Turkish
officials saying that they feel that
they've been treated unfairly of course
it gets a little bit trickier here
because I've talked to a lot of the fans
I'm actually in front of the stadium
right now um and they told me that this
is a gesture that Turkish people have
been using for thousands of years as a
normal greeting and they feel that the
right has kind of hijacked the symbol
from them so there's been a lot of calls
to use the gesture today in the stadium
um we don't know for what reasons it is
but there's a lot of tension heading
into this match now we've seen the
gesture being displayed there behind
behind you as we were talking you're
outside Berlin's Olympic Stadium there
uh tell us what the atmosphere is
like yeah so this Euros is very much
also a home Euros for turkey as well we
know there's a large Turkish diaspora in
Germany a lot of Turkish people in
Berlin uh and there's been great support
honestly for turkey throughout the
tournament from a fan perspective the
atmosphere has been great each game I've
been to a few of turkey games already um
there's really strong fan support and
that really helps the players now today
for example we've seen nothing so
violent they were expecting a little bit
of tension there is a lot of police here
more than other games for sure Dutch
police Turkish police and German police
but so far Spirits are good and a lot of
the fans I talked to they said you know
they want to support their team and they
want to push them in the
tournament now uh what can we expect
from the match
itself well coming into this match
turkey is definitely the underdog I mean
Netherlands is a strong side on paper uh
they haven't really been so spectacular
and then they started to click in their
last game against Romania of course both
sides are sides that like to attack the
Netherlands of course has Cody gako who
is in the running to be one of the top
scorers of this tournament now
defensively the Netherlands definitely
has a little bit of an edge in this one
of course players like Virgil Van djk uh
but turkey does have that fighting
Spirit we saw that against Austria
they're not afraid of being the underdog
and hopefully it will be a fantastic
match because both of these teams have
given us some of the most exciting games
we've seen this tournament so whatever
the outcome it will be a fantastic match
either way van Barcelona there DW Sports
enjoy the match and thank you joining me
now in the studio is DW Chief political
editor Michaela kufner uh Michaela
there's been quite a diplomatic spat now
between Germany and turkey can you tell
us more yeah it's not often that
ambassadors get summoned after a
football match but after
this gray wolves symbol by the Turkish
National player the German ambassador
was summoned in Turkey which is highly
unusual a UEFA imposed a fine a two-
match ban and somehow the Turkish side
sees that as a bilateral national issue
which kind of also gives us an insight
into how turkey perceives its own State
and how uh legal rules should work
because UEFA is removed from the power
of the German government and um now we
then saw the ambassador of turkey
summoned here in Germany over that very
act also accusations of racism from the
Turkish side and we are seeing quite an
outrage debate in Turkey but also fueled
by political State statements by Turkish
president Adan himself being outraged
saying look what's wrong with this after
all the German Jersey has an eagle on it
the French Jersey has a cockrel on it we
have our symbols uh there's no big deal
here and uh clearly the Turkish um
political rightwing feels that this is
political the Turkish president does and
the Turkish public is outraged so this
is a very toxic m match not just for the
stadium tonight but also for for
bilateral relations so with erdogan
showing up in Germany could that mean
more diplomatic uh
implications for sure um what we expect
to see tonight night is a potentially
very tangibly tense atmosphere inside
that Stadium here in Berlin uh we've
seen the right-wing fan groups calling
on fans here in Germany there's three
million people living in Germany with
Turkish Roots so many people will be
torn in different directions here anyway
um they were called upon to show that
very symbol it's not legally banned yet
I dare say here in Germany but the
interior minister of Germany Nancy faser
said it shouldn't be shown inside the
stadium so all eyes will be on taj Adan
The Turk president whether he himself
will use this symbol and appease his own
Coalition partner which is tied to the
so-called greywolves organization back
in Turkey so whatever happens there off
the pitch potentially also on the pitch
has political implications tonight now
we've not only seen fans from turkey
with overt displays of controversial
nationalism we've seen it from other
countries as well is this something
that's fairly new uh in in uh sports or
is this something that's been happening
for quite some time well it's not
completely new but it's very notable
that uh In This Very climate where
you've seen a shift to the right in
several European countries also those
French elections taking place where the
far right is expected to make
significant games also in the second
round um that this is also happening
inside the stadium also on the other end
of the spectrum we saw a French national
player be concerned that he might not be
able to wear the French jersey with
pride basically saying that if the far
right wins that that really is an issue
for him that's politics um on on the
pitch and here we're now seeing uh what
could really be a very tense and
dangerous situation tonight because it's
also a safety issue if you have this
heated up atmosphere already in inside a
stadium of course everybody wants to win
but this will be an issue of Pride and
it will be an issue of political Pride
for the Turkish president himself who
allegedly is here on a a so-called
private trip but there's nothing private
about a Turkish president being here in
Germany Michaela kufner thank you so
much for joining us