Protesting is often seen as a very serious step, one where a group or a person is usually standing against something they believe to be wrong or unjust.
In order to do so, people frequently take some extreme measures so that their grief and stand can be seen clearly by everyone, especially by those in power.
One example could be the 2012 ‘Free the Nipple’ campaign that talked about how women should not be forced to wear a bra and tried to remove the sexual meaning given to breasts. It had many women lead marches across public spaces without wearing a bra with some going topless in order to show that there was nothing wrong with a woman’s nipples.
Recently, two amateur soccer teams in Germany decided to take such an extreme measure to protest against the commercialization of the sport.
What Did These Two German Teams Do?
In the town of Oer-Erkenschwick in North Rhine-Westphalia, a German state, two football teams decided to play a naked football match in order to protest against how money-minded the sport was becoming.
Organised by an artist called Gerrit Starczewski, the game was held at the Stimberg Stadium in mid-August this year.
Gerrit was quoted saying, “The football system is sick, that’s why we all get naked,” and further stated that, “Everybody wants to have authenticity. But I think you are only particularly authentic if you do without all the other stuff, really everything, from the advertising banners to the clothing.”
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The players were entirely in the nude, wearing only football socks and shoes, the socks being in team colour in order to differentiate the players. The players had hand-painted their player numbers all over their backs.
Starczewski, with this type of a game, wanted to satirise the superficiality of the sport and how it was becoming inauthentic by the day.
He explained the aim behind this saying, “With my nude actions, I also want to set an example for diversity and naturalness and against the dependence and influence of social media and false ideals of beauty.”
He also concluded with saying, “Body authenticity is something that is absent in modern football and that is reflected in how the sport sells a certain kind of body image. Everything has to be perfect there too, and in the end it’s all about commercialization.”
This game comes just weeks after the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) head was accused by Swiss prosecutors of “rampant, systematic, deep-rooted” corruption.
The FIFA President Gianni Infantino is currently being investigated into after the Swiss prosecutors learnt of his allegedly secret meeting with Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber.
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: NY Post, The Guardian, DW
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This post is tagged under: naked football, naked football germany, germany football protest, germany teams naked football, naked football protest, football commercialization, protest against football commercialisation, FIFA president, swiss regulators, FIFA President Gianni Infantino, Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber
