Frankfurt, Oct 19, (dpa/GNA) – Mainz coach Bo Svensson, backed the club’s decision to suspend forward Anwar El Ghazi, from training and matches, after a since-deleted pro-Palestine post on Instagram.
“It’s the way it is. We have to deal with that. It’s not completely optimal,” Svensson said in a news conference on Thursday, but stressed: “I stand behind this decision. I think it’s right that we did it this way.”
Mainz, however, have lost another forward, as they fight to leave the bottom of the Bundesliga table, after Jonathan Burkardt and Nelson Weiper suffered long-term injuries.
Karim Onisiwo, meanwhile, has a cold and is doubtful for the match against champions Bayern Munich on Saturday. The personnel situation “hasn’t become any easier,” Svensson said.
Mainz, who are yet to win a game in this Bundesliga season, announced El Ghazi’s suspension on Tuesday, saying that his opinion on the ongoing conflict between Palestinian militant groups and Israel “was deemed unacceptable by the club.”
El Ghazi shared a post which said: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” For many, this statement is a way to deny Israel’s right to exist. Until Monday, the player also had a profile picture with the words “I stand with Palestine.”
Israel has been pounding Gaza, a densely populated coastal enclave along the Mediterranean Sea, with airstrikes, ever since massacres by Hamas fighters in Israeli border communities and at a music festival left more than 1,400 people dead, the vast majority civilians. Hamas also took nearly 200 people hostage back to Gaza, including many foreign and dual nationals.
GNA