Werder Bremen will not fulfil their proposed summer tour of the U.S., citing recent incidents in Minneapolis, Minnesota as “not fitting the values” of the club.
The German soccer team had provisionally been planning to spend a week between Minnesota and Detroit in May, playing two friendly matches. No opponents had been confirmed, and the proposal never progressed.
A club spokesperson cited recent actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis. Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed by U.S. federal agents in the city last month.
“In Minnesota, two people were shot dead by state authorities,” the club spokesperson said.
“Playing in a city where there is unrest and people are being shot does not fit our values. That will not happen with us.
“It is no longer known with which players you can still enter the USA due to the tightened entry conditions, which demand, among other things, for a review of the social media profiles of the past five years.”
Clemens Fritz, Werder’s sports director, had previously said the club were reconsidering whether to hold a pre-season tour outside of Germany.
“There would have been the possibility of a trip to the USA, but we decided against it in principle,” Fritz said last month.
“It is unclear whether we will even go on a tour abroad in the end. Not least because some players will be at the World Cup and our under-19 national players will also be on a training course at that time.”
Tour cancellation no surprise
Analysis by Seb Stafford-Bloor
Bremen are among Germany’s most left-wing clubs.
Their active fan scene has long been entwined with progressive causes, taking staunch positions against racism, sexism and homophobia. Their matchday tifos in the Ostkurve section of their Weserstadion regularly reinforce those positions, acting as a living tapestry for the supporters’ belief system and protesting against local, as well as international issues.
In that context, this decision is not a surprise and Bremen would almost certainly have faced a significant ideological problem had they chosen to go ahead with this tour.
Werder have one of the most active fan scenes in Germany (Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)
On Sunday in the Bundesliga, they will face Hamburg’s St. Pauli, another strongly left-wing club, with whom their supporters have an official friendship. In addition, St. Pauli president Oke Goettlich was among the first major figures in German — and European — football to call for a debate about a potential boycott of the 2026 World Cup.
Bremen are struggling this season and recently dismissed head coach Horst Steffen.
In his place, they appointed Daniel Thioune who, alongside Vincent Kompany, is one of only two Black head coaches in the Bundesliga. Moreover, during his time at Osnabruck, Thioune became the first Black coach born in Germany to take charge of one of the country’s professional teams.