FC Bayern Munich turns cold shoulder to inconvenient truth of human rights

A day in which the highly polarizing icon of FC Bayern Munich, Uli Hoeneß, was set to ride off into the sunset after a successful career, a new scandal has rocked FC Bayern Munich and sadly it is not a brand new one. A report by ARD Sportschau states that FC Bayern is yet again turning its back on human rights. In this case, according to ARD and confirmed by Deutsche Welle, a fan made a proposal to include a “Human Rights Clause” in the club’s constitution, but the club unilaterally dismissed it, and quite frankly their reasoning why is garbage.

The initial submission in itself is honestly filled with common-sense arguments that help show the club’s view on the issue of human rights. As DW summarizes:

The motion, submitted by a Bayern Munich member on October 11 on the basis of the club’s social responsibility and function as a role-model, proposed an additional clause in the “Purpose and Responsibilities” section of the club’s constitution which would have read: “The club is committed to upholding human rights in accordance with the United Nations Guiding Principles of Business and Human Rights and is committed to protecting these rights.”

Basically speaking, this clause would confirm Bayern’s support of the United Nations’ position on human rights, declaring that the club stands in support of ending human rights abuses and would use its position as one of the most powerful and popular sports clubs in the world to convey that message. But that would conflict with Bayern’s partnership with Qatar, no?

This is what the club had to say in rejecting this amendment:

Bayern’s executive committee decided not to raise the motion at the club’s AGM due to a “lack of admissibility.” The club says that it, as an organization, “neither falls under the category of a state” nor under that of a “commercial enterprise in the sense of these guiding principles.”

First of all, I have to express how much nonsense is in this response. I’ll be honest. I love FC Bayern, but this issue has continued to be a black eye on the club, and a very ugly one at that.

This is not the first time that Bayern has run into criticism regarding is role in the human rights discussion. Last year, our very own head honcho John Dillon wrote an exceptional piece detailing the intricacies of Bayern’s much criticized partnership with Qatar and their winter training camp in Doha, which can be found here.

Photo by Sebastian Widmann/Bongarts/Getty Images

He is far from the only one to criticize Bayern for these deals. It just so happens that the fans are quite upset with the deals as well, and have continually protested during matches, much like this tifo:

Outstanding training conditions.

At the end of the day, this has continued to be an extremely dark cloud hovering over our FC Bayern. Qatar, as pointed out in the BFW article linked above, has routinely been deemed one of the worst human rights violators in the world and rightfully so. Even in the face of all of this, money talks and FC Bayern will continue to listen to it so long as it helps their bottom line instead of listening to their fans and common sense.