The German Football Association will also take legal action
Antonio Rudiger and the German Football Association (DFB) will take legal action after the defender was linked to a terrorist organisation.
Rudiger, a devout Muslim, recently posted a photo of himself in a white robe on a prayer mat.
Pointing to the sky as part of a greeting for the holy month of Ramadan, Rudiger captioned the post: “May the Almighty accept our fasting and prayers.”
In response to the post, former BILD editor Julian Reichelt posted on X: “For everyone who doesn’t want to recognise Antonio Rudiger’s Islamist greeting as an Islamist greeting: the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution calls this gesture the ‘IS finger’ and sees the index finger as a clear sign of Islamism.”
Since the comments were made, Rudiger has filed a complaint with the Berlin public prosecutor’s office, and the DFB has also reported the case to the Central Office for Combating Internet Crime (ZIT) of the Frankfurt/Main Public Prosecutor’s Office.
He declined to comment when asked about the incident on Monday.
Reichelt doubles down
Despite the complaints, which include the DFB filing the post to the public prosecutor’s office as “hate speech”, Reichelt doubled down with another post on Monday night.
He wrote: “This gesture has been completely co-opted by terrorists over the last two decades. It has undisputedly become the greeting of ISIS and Islamist murderers all over the world, of people who also murdered in Berlin and bring disaster and immeasurable suffering to the world.
“Anyone who poses like this in public is consciously showing the greeting of fanatics and not an innocent, spiritual gesture. It is a normalization of a terrible ideology that has already taken over far too much space in this country.
“Also and especially because it’s about a popular national player, you shouldn’t allow yourself to be intimidated. It is important to point out that this political ideology goes against everything that our values are.
“The raised index finger of Islamism, with which terrorists around the world celebrate their murders, does not belong to Germany. I will never let anyone stop me from saying that.”
The Real Madrid star is currently with the national team as they prepare to take on The Netherlands tonight (Tuesday March 26).
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