Personnel | Not against the Caballeros

Photo: dpa/AP/Manu Fernandez Tuesday evening in the Spanish football league, the world club Real Madrid is a guest at FC Elche in southwest Spain. The business association there wants to show solidarity with the residents of the Spanish North African exclave of Ceuta. Both clubs therefore decide to wear T-shirts during warm-ups with a message: "Todos somos Caballas" (We are all Caballas - that's what the residents of Ceuta are called) and underneath in smaller letters: "Ceuta y sus caballeros de la mar" (Ceuta and its Knights of the Sea).

Three Real Madrid players, Vinícius Júnior, Ibrahima Konaté and Kylian Mbappé, wear their shirts in such a way that only “Todos somos Caballas” can be read. This is interpreted as a protest by the three professional footballers, and conservative to extreme right-wing circles are fuming.

Mbappé later commented on his motives in the sports newspaper "As": "It was a difficult situation because in the end people could think that I was against the people of Ceuta. But no. I support her 100 percent. But I also wanted to make a gesture to all the migrants who have lost their lives and who also live in harsh conditions. He doesn't want to outweigh the suffering. He would rather convey a message of “positivity and peace.”

The 27-year-old Mbappé repeatedly speaks out on political issues. When he was younger, teammates jokingly called the captain of the French national soccer team “little Obama.” A nickname that the two-time world champion lives up to. But Mbappé is also a projection surface. As the son of a mother from Algeria and a father born in Cameroon, he grew up in the Parisian banlieue Bondy. Politicians regularly cite the football star as a shining example of integration. He is a role model for many young people: his journey from the poor suburbs to becoming one of the highest-paid footballers in the world is a dream for many.

What also contributes to Mbappé's status as a role model is the fact that he repeatedly opens his mouth. When a 17-year-old from Nanterre near Paris was shot by the police in the summer of 2023 and there were riots that lasted for days, he tried to calm the situation with a statement from the French national team. It talks about an “unacceptable death” and that the players understand the anger because many of them also come from the suburbs. But violence is not a solution: "You are destroying your own goods, your neighborhoods, your cities, the places where you develop and meet." At the end of the statement it says that the way must be cleared for mourning, dialogue and reconstruction.

Almost a year later, shortly before the parliamentary elections, Mbappé warned against voting for “extreme” parties and called on young French people to go vote. One must defend the values ​​of “social and cultural diversity” and of tolerance and respect.

The striker earns more than 30 million euros a year. He could afford to remain silent, but he won't and has encouraged numerous other footballers to speak out on social issues.

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