Despite the demanding schedule in the current phase of the season, Jonathan Tah did not miss the opportunity to take part in the workshop at the Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium in person. The 28-year-old is very keen to raise awareness of this issue. "I will never forget an encounter with racism from my youth. We had a few dark-skinned players in our team back then and at an away game, the spectators kept making monkey noises when one of them was on the ball or fetched the ball," says Tah about his first experiences. However, such incidents are not a thing of the past, as the Werkself key player went on to explain: "Unfortunately, there are still cases like this today. That makes it all the more important to talk about it. As many people as possible must work to prevent these people and statements from happening. If we all stand together, we can make a big difference."
The students took great interest in the interactive exercises of the workshop - for personal reasons, too. Almost half the group said they'd either been a victim of racism or discrimination or witnessed comments of this nature.
"A teammate of mine was called a 'bloody foreigner' by a spectator at a football match," revealed 15-year-old Juan, who is studying the social components of sport with his classmates in the elective subject 'Exercise, Health and Society (BGG)'. "It was a very unpleasant feeling, but we all stood by him in the situation and helped him as much as we could."
In addition to Juan and a few other students from the ‘BGG’ class, some of the school's ‘sports volunteers’ group also took part in the workshop with Tah. Racism in sport was also already a topic in this voluntary working group. "It was very interesting to hear how a successful and seasoned professional footballer deals with the issue of racism," said 17-year-old Oumaima, who has a multicultural circle of friends herself. "We learnt a lot from the workshop. Such an exchange is very important."
At the end, the pupils naturally also had the opportunity to get autographs and selfies from and with the German international. Many of them had come to school in their Bayer 04 jerseys - and not for the first time. Teacher Tim Ortelbach: "Whether the students, colleagues or our caretaker - we all support the Werkself here! The day after winning the German championship, our headmaster played the Bayer 04 anthem over the school loudspeakers instead of the bell in the morning."
It's time for the first friendly of this summer's pre-season: the Werkself visit Rot-Weiss Essen this evening, Friday 26 July (kick-off 19:00 CEST). All the info on the match at the Stadion an der Hafenstraße.
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Show moreTime to roll up the sleeves and do some good again: At what was now the eighth edition of the BAYER 04 HILFT Day, staff and players once again dedicated an entire day to a good cause this year. Following last year's efforts at NaturGut Ophoven, this time the Bayer 04 team restored the outdoor area of a Leverkusen children's day-care centre with great support from Lebenshilfe-Werkstätten Leverkusen and club partner Coca-Cola.
Show moreWith weloveholidays, Bayer 04 Leverkusen welcomes another official partner to the German champions and DFB Cup winners’ Sponsors Club. As part of the British loveholidays group, weloveholidays is one of Europe’s biggest and fastest growing online travel companies. The partnership between the Bundesliga club and the company, which has been active in Germany since May 2023, is set to run until 30 June 2026.
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