Archive: https://archive.is/2025.03.21-113643/https://www.ft.com/content/0d43970a-e3a6-4871-820a-18e5736f5572

The German parliament’s football team was adamant that it already had enough rightwingers. But FC Bundestag has been thrown into crisis after a Berlin court overturned a ban on members of the far-right Alternative for Germany from joining the squad.

In a microcosm of the fraught debate about how to handle the AfD — which last month claimed a historic second-place finish in federal elections — the club must now decide how to respond to the ruling and whether to allow the far right MPs to take part in its weekly matches.

“More than 20 per cent of the population voted for us and want us to be represented in different offices in the parliament — and also in FC Bundestag,” said Malte Kaufmann, an AfD Bundestag member who campaigned against the ban. “This is an example of how opposition rights are trampled in Germany.”