Politician in Jerome Boateng race row over 'neighbour' comment

A politician in Germany has become embroiled in a race row after claiming that Germans "would not want" international footballer Jerome Boateng as their neighbour.

Alexander Gauland, deputy leader of the country's anti-immigration party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), said although many people admired the 27-year-old Bayern Munich defender they would not want to live next door to him.

Newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung quoted Gauland as saying "people like him as a football player. But they don’t want to have a Boateng as their neighbour".

Teetotal and a practising Christian, Boateng, a regular in the Munich defence, has a German mother and Ghainaian father.

He has even been mooted as a future captain of the international side.

Following criticism of his comments, Gauland released a statement denying he intended to insult the player.

He said he had not made the comments in the form quoted by the newspaper, adding: “I don’t know him [Boateng] and would never come up with the idea of denigrating his personality".

The president of the German football association, Reinhard Grindel, criticised Gauland, saying it was “simply tasteless” to abuse Boateng’s popularity “for political messages”.

Schalke defender Benedikt Höwedes, who started alongside Boateng in the Germany team that beat Argentina in the 2014 World Cup final, also commented on the affair on social media: “If you want to win titles for Germany you need neighbours like him. #Defence".