Let's imagine for a moment that there is a world football team made up exclusively of players who belong to the minority in their home countries that are summarised worldwide under the term Roma and who call themselves Sinti and Roma in Germany.

The world selection of Sinti and Roma

It would be an illustrious team, peppered with world stars and world champions, active and former. The fact that it has not been realized so far, has nothing to do with a lack of commitment, but with the fact that most of them do not make their origins public.

Possibly because it is their private matter, which they do not consider worth sharing with others. But above all because Roma, Sinti, Gitanos, Kale, Manouche or whatever group they belong to are still discriminated against throughout Europe. Even in football, in the curves and boxes.

Stubborn prejudices

"There is no other minority about which the population has so little information, but at the same time believes it knows so many negative things," says former German boxer Oswald Marschall. "The prejudices persist which means that, even in sport, hardly any celebrities admit to belonging to the minority."

There are only a few top footballers whose Roma origin is generally known, such as the former Portuguese national player Ricardo Quaresma and Jesus Navas from Sevilla FC.

This makes it even more important that the Europeada has always hosted a Roma team. In the previous tournaments, it was the Roma from Hungary, this time the Roma from Romania have travelled to the event. They want to make their team "a source of motivation for all young people" from their minority, as they write on Facebook. The team unites players "who sleep with the ball, wake up with the ball, who live, eat, breathe and sweat football, but who are powerless and alone with their dream due to various circumstances".

EUROPEADA lecture on antiziganism

The German Sinti and Roma do not have their own team – unlike the other minorities organizing the Europeada 2024, they do not have their own clubs or schools from which they could recruit players. Nevertheless, the Europeada is an important event for them too. "This is a very important event where we can show that we, as an autochthonous minority, are part of this society and have been living in this country for over 600 years," says Rolf Schlotter from the Association of German Sinti and Roma in Schleswig-Holstein.

Schlotter will give a lecture on the life and history of the Sinti and Roma at Flensborghus on Tuesday afternoon (2 July, 3 pm). Unfortunately, the topic of "Antiziganism" will play a major role. As different as the culture and history of Europe's largest minority may be in their respective home countries, they all have one thing in common: the experience of persecution and discrimination. This reached its horrific peak during the Nazi regime in Germany (1933-1945), when around 500,000 Roma and Sinti were murdered throughout Europe. There is no family that does not still suffer from the murder and trauma of their ancestors.

FUEN calls for solidarity with the Roma

Discrimination continues to this day in various forms. In its Eisenstadt Declaration of 2019, the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN) called for solidarity with the Roma. Among other things, it states: "The vast majority of the ten to twelve million Roma in Europe live in bitter poverty. Even today, they are often oppressed, despised or discriminated against and are victims of racist hostility in some regions. (...) FUEN is committed to solidarity with the Roma."

And then comes a sentence that perfectly fits EUROPEADA: "By getting to know each other, a bond of solidarity based on respect and mutual understanding can develop between members of the Roma and representatives of other minorities. By acting together and jointly articulating their interests, the hostile attitude that is still the first thing to strike the Roma, when they appear in isolation, can be mitigated."

Committed pupils erect a memorial

The German Sinti and Roma are now officially recognized as a national minority. Their organizations and associations are working successfully for equal participation, the preservation of their culture and recognition of their history of persecution. Nevertheless, everyday discrimination and antiziganist acts of violence continue to occur in Germany. The Sinti in Flensburg experienced a particularly despicable example a few weeks ago.

A few years ago, pupils and teachers at the private Waldorf School in Flensburg discovered that their school had been built on a historically memorable site.

The Flensburg Sinti were initially forcibly deported to this site during the Nazi era, only to be sent to forced labour and concentration camps in what is now Poland in 1940. On the initiative of the school, a memorial column was erected there in September 2023 to commemorate the 44 deported Sinti, 22 of whom did not survive the concentration camps.

“Robbed of their goals and ideals”

This memorial was destroyed a few weeks ago when the column was torn from its moorings and dragged about a hundred metres away. According to the newspaper taz, investigators see a "politically motivated reason" for the offence and the specialised police department for state security has taken up the investigation. "The cooperation with the pupils at the school was perfect," says Rolf Schlotter.

"That's why I was particularly shocked when I heard about the vandalism. It was important for us to first take care of those who initiated the memorial. They were robbed of their work, their goals, their wishes and their ideals.

Opportunity to talk and get to know each other and get to know each other

In September, the memorial column is to be re-erected in its old location. In his EUROPEADA lecture on 2 July, Rolf Schlotter will tell us more about this. Above all, however, he will dispel all the prejudices that still exist about Sinti and Roma. "Hardly anyone knows a Sinto," he says, "But everyone knows what we are like."

And perhaps there will be enough football-loving Sinti and Roma in Germany to set up their own team by the EUROPEADA 2028.

Text: Ralf Lorenzen
Photo: the Roma National Team from Romania at the EUROPEADA opening. Photo credit: EUROPEADA/Rasmus Meyer