The Bayern Munich squad left for Qatar on Friday for his or her winter coaching camp amid uncertainty over the membership’s controversial sponsorship cope with the Persian Gulf nation.
State-owned Qatar Airways’ profitable promoting deal is because of expire on the finish of the season and the Bavarian powerhouse is below stress from its personal followers to not prolong it. Many Bayern supporters really feel that taking cash from a rustic related to human rights abuses is dangerous to the membership’s repute.
The difficulty has lengthy been a supply of rivalry between Bayern and its personal followers, who’ve campaigned relentlessly in opposition to the sponsorship settlement. Member of Munich’s Red Pride End Club, a Bayern ultra-fan group. Bayern’s promotion for the quantity 12, Shekhdam, displayed banners at video games condemning the “sports washing” of human rights abuses in Qatar.
“We stick to our position that we are absolutely against extending the sponsorship agreement,” membership No. 12’s Alexander Salzweger informed The Associated Press this week. “Unlike in previous years, it is no longer about an early termination, which would have more than complicated, but would not have extended sponsorship.”
Bayern didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Fans had earlier referred to as for Bayern to prematurely finish the sponsorship deal. The membership’s 2021 AGM resulted in uproar and anger after members slammed the membership’s administrators for refusing to debate the difficulty.
Bayern chairman Herbert Hainer apologized on the subsequent AGM final November when he mentioned he had made “mistakes” by not permitting dialogue on the earlier assembly.
Club No. 12 held a public assembly in Munich in 2020 titled “Qatar, human rights and FC Bayern”, through which two migrant employees spoke of their experiences constructing the stadium for the World Cup. Bayern had been invited to ship a consultant however didn’t reply to the organisers.
The workforce performs with Qatar Airways on the sleeve of the gamers’ jerseys. His five-year cope with the Qatari service earns the membership 10 million euros ($10.5 million) a 12 months. That association was signed in 2018, changing Bayern’s earlier sponsorship cope with Doha Airport.
The membership has been holding mid-season coaching camps within the Persian Gulf nation since 2011, though plans to coach there in 2022 and 2021 had been scrapped because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Bayern CEO Oliver Kahn mentioned in November that the membership was suspending its resolution to increase its cope with Qatar Airways.
“We will continue to discuss this issue in depth after the World Cup and find a solution for FC Bayern,” Kahn informed members on the AGM.
Since then there was no information from the membership on this difficulty.
With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
