German football club Bayern München has pledged to play an “active part” in helping young refugees arriving into the country.
The German champion has tasked its youth section to establish a “training camp” for refugees over the coming weeks, while also offering €1m worth of other material and practical help to people arriving from war-torn countries.
The camp will offer refugee children meals, football sessions and German language classes to help deal with the emotional traumas they’ve suffered during their long journeys to safety.
As a further show of solidarity, Bayern players will also be escorted onto the pitch hand-in-hand with a German child and a refugee child at the club’s next match against FC Augsburg on 12 September.
FC Bayern president Karl-Hopfner announced that other measures – details of which will be confirmed later – will also be taken by the club’s charity foundation FC Bayern Hilfe eV.
The club’s chair Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, said: “We at FC Bayern consider it our socio-political responsibility to help displaced and needy children, women and men, supporting and assisting them in Germany.
Bavarian interior minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) welcomed the plans: “This is a wonderful and exemplary programme which I fully welcome and support – another magnificent example of the willingness to help and welcoming culture in our country.”
It is the latest move by a leading German sports club to alleviate the terrors faced by young refugee children, forced to leave their home countries amid increased instability in the Middle East.
Current Bundesliga leaders Borussia Dortmund invited 220 refugees to watch their game against Norwegian side Odd in the Europa League last week (Thursday 27 August), while another top flight club – Mainz 05 – gave out 200 free tickets to their home match against Hannover last weekend (29 August).
Adding to the clubs’ official efforts, fans all over Germany staged impromptu demonstrations by holding up banners declaring 'welcome refugees' during last weekend’s games.
• Germany has accepted more asylum applications than any other country in Europe and expects to receive a total of 800,000 refugees this year.
Germany has also pledged to open its borders to “anyone arriving from Syria”.
In stark contrast, official figures released last week show that the UK has only taken in 216 Syrian refugees since June 2014 under the EU’s relocation initiative.
