BERLIN, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- The conflict in the Middle East has prompted a German soccer player to stay home from a match in Israel.
Iranian-born German international soccer player Ashkan Dejagah, 21, who plays for Bundesliga club VfB Wolfsburg, asked his coach to withdraw him from Germany's European Championship qualifier against Israel in Tel Aviv citing "personal reasons."
The decision has prompted harsh reactions from officials and the media in Germany, with mass-selling newspapers calling for Dejagah's exclusion from the national team. Conservative politicians from German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union have backed that call.
The Central Council of the Jews in Germany strongly criticized the move.
"It is unbelievable and impossible that a national team player launches his own private Jewish boycott," Dieter Graumann, the council’s deputy head, told the online version of German magazine Der Spiegel.
The head of the German Soccer Federation said that his group’s position was clear.
"We will not accept that a German national player refuses to play in an international match for reasons associated with his views on world politics."
