Turkey centre-back Merih Demiral has coped flak from German Interior Minister Nancy Faesar over his goal celebration in his team’s win over Austria in the Euro 2024 Round of 16 fixture on Tuesday.
Demiral’s gesturing the shape of a wolf’s head is linked to ‘Grey Wolves’, an ultra-nationalist youth branch of Turkey’s Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), an ally of President Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party.
“The symbols of Turkish right-wing extremists have no place in our stadiums,” the German minister Faeser wrote in a post on X. “Using the European Football Championship as a platform for racism is completely unacceptable.”
The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) said it would look into “the alleged inappropriate behaviour” of Demiral.
Speaking on his celebration, player of the match Demiral said, “I had a celebration in mind about being Turkish. I did that (gesture). I am very proud to be a Turk, I felt that to my bones after scoring the goal, that is why I wanted to do something like that.
“I am very happy to have done that, all the fans are proud of us. I saw people in the audience doing that. I wanted to do it after seeing them,” he added.
The Grey Wolves were founded in 1960s and are infamously attributed for the political violence in the 1980 coup that claimed over 5,000 Turkish lives.
UEFA have been cracking down on player misconduct having already banned Albania’s Mirlind Daky for two games after he led fans in offensive chants, and investigating England’s Jude Bellingham for a crotch-grabbing gesture.