Fundraiser for crying Germany fan exceeds £25,000

Twenty five grand

A fundraiser set up to raise money for the young Germany fan who was pictured crying at Wembley on Tuesday has reached a whopping £26,391, exceeding its £500 target by 5278 per cent, at the time of writing. The GoFundMe page was created by Joel Hughes, who writes on the page: "an unsavoury element of social media piled in on this photo of an upset little girl," citing a tweet from Stan Collymore that highlighted xenophobic abuse from some England fans towards the child.

"Yes, there are more people affected by this than just this little girl but hey, this is just meant to be a token of goodwill. Yes there are other potential good causes - but I've picked this," he added.

"I'd like to think that the parents of the little girl will spend this on a nice treat for her so that she knows that not everyone from the UK is horrible and that we care."

Hughes clarifies further down on the page, "No, I don't know who the girl is (yet) but I know social media can sort that out." The fundraiser's huge success has divided the Twittersphere, with many finding the idea that this is a worthy cause laughable, while not condoning the abuse that was aimed at the child on social media. Others will find any reason to sneer at football, and football fans in particular, and champion this well meaning, if incredibly unnecessary cause.