Seeing sport as a means of integration is the idea behind FC Ente Bagdad. This Mainz-based club welcomes many foreign players to its team, providing a way for them to socialize, learn, and adapt to life in Germany.
Cet article a été écrit par des jeunes journalistes du projet Europe Convergence 2024, porté par Magna Vox, le Partnerschaftsverband, et VISK (Vzdělávací institut středočeského kraje)
“We’ll have to wait for Saleh,” says Eric. Arriving by bus on the quiet Ulrichstraße in Mainz, Eric, dressed in shorts and cleats, must wait outside the closed stadium gates. Saleh is the coach, but he’s also the one with the keys to open the FC Ente Bagdad training ground. As a club, « FC Duck Baghdad » welcomes refugees, migrants, and locals to play soccer, with the aim of facilitating integration through sport. “You’ll never watschel alone,” says the club’s slogan, a playful nod to Liverpool FC’s famous motto.
At 4:15 p.m., Saleh arrives, greeting everyone with a shy smile. The young coach opens the gates to the training park. Before becoming the club’s coach, Saleh had a difficult journey to Germany, fleeing Syria because of the civil war. His departure “in the middle of the night” led him to Turkey and Bulgaria. “My younger sister and I stayed in Bulgaria, where we were detained by the police for no reason and thrown into prison,” Saleh recalls. A humiliating experience, starkly different from his life in Germany. “We have many more rights here, and with that comes much more freedom and equality. You’re treated like everyone else, and that’s really the most important thing for me.”

In Mainz, Saleh had to adapt in order to fit in. The process involved discovery and caution. “The difficulties I face here are different in nature because everything is new and unfamiliar. I’ll give you an example: in Germany, there’s a law that you must not cross the street when the traffic light is red. It was hard for me to imagine that such a rule exists! In my first days and months, I was very unsure about what I was allowed to do or not, and I paid much attention to that since I didn’t want to break any laws.”
Adapting to a new country is extremely hard, especially when you don’t speak the language and can’t communicate with others. Despite his best efforts, Saleh couldn’t communicate at school because he didn’t know enough German to even say, “I want to learn German.”
Like many others, Saleh learned the language on the fields of FC Ente Bagdad—a field where many languages are spoken. French, Arabic, and English are used for quick conversations with teammates, but German is always used for group discussions.
A variety of languages can be heard on the fields, along with a variety of ages, skill levels, and backgrounds. Among the players, these differences aren’t really important. The main point is to find people to play with who can help you integrate into German society.
For immigrants, this can be a game changer. “If I hadn’t joined this club, my life here in Germany would have definitely been different,” says Saleh. Clubs like this one help refugees truly integrate, rather than just skimming the surface. “I think it’s hard for non-refugees to imagine how important opportunities like these are for us. They help us where they can, whether it be legal assistance, apartment searches, personal development courses—like how to write an application, how to find an internship or job training, how to conduct an interview—or team activities like swimming or going to the soccer stadium,” shares the coach.

Integrating into German society also means integrating into the German labor market. The Institute for Employment Research reports that eight years after their arrival, 68 percent of asylum seekers are part of the labor market. However, refugees are regularly overqualified and underpaid, reports DW. “There are some professions that tend to be practiced by a highly disproportionate number of refugees, especially in the medical field. And there are a lot of hard-working, low-income jobs that many Germans simply don’t want to do, but that are systematically relevant—some more and some less, but still relevant,” Saleh explains.
Recently, Germany has seen the rise of the far right, and their racist and anti-migrant ideas have begun to infiltrate society. However, the coach of FC Ente Bagdad doesn’t recall many negative interactions with Germans. He adds, “Integration is the key for refugees to feel accepted and included. If everybody were skeptical or opposed, integration wouldn’t even be possible. We at least need a chance to demonstrate that we are willing to be a part of German society—willing to learn the language, learn about the culture and traditions and respect the law”.
Text : Felix Werner, Yann Dorée / Photos : Petr Hegedus
This article has been written by young journalists from the project Europe Convergence 2024