A shirt, number 44 of the German national football team, which recalls the symbol of the Nazi SS and the German Football Federation which takes action for an alternative design regarding the numbering.
Almost two months after the kick-off of the European Football Championships in Germany, the incredible oversight of the designers who thought up and created the number 4 to be placed on the shirts of Kroos and his teammates and the social controversies that arose from it, forced the Adidas to ban the online sale of the shirt with the number 44.
After 70 years of marriage and the divorce announced for the next few seasons (Germany will pass to Nike for 100 million per season starting from 2027), between the house of the three stripes and the Nationalmannschaft it is the worst way to say goodbye. The first to raise the problem was a German historian, Michael König, who had noted the similarity of the character of the number 4 with the symbol of the SS, the symbol of the Schutzstaffel, better known as the SS, or the paramilitary organization of the German National Socialist Party .
From there a heated debate started in Germany, especially on social media, which led to the drastic decision to remove the number 44 from the market. At the European Championship the shirts are from 1 to 23, outside of those competitions the numbers can be chosen by players; and even if the possibility of any player rising so high in the numbering was low, at Adidas stores any fan can have their Germany shirt personalized with the name and number they want. So to avoid a wave of tragically evocative shirts, the technical sponsor blocked the sale of every 44. In any case, it would have been an oversight – assured Oliver Bruggen, spokesperson for the well-known sports brand – “absolutely unintentional”. To remedy the incident, the German Football Federation (DFB) announced that “it will develop an alternative design for the number 4 and then officially adapt it in coordination with UEFA. All together with 1teamsports”, the partner with which the shirts were designed . “When it was pointed out on social media that 44 was similar to a symbol used by the Nazis – the Dfb then underlines – we immediately took this information into consideration and blocked this number in our fan shops. Furthermore, also the number ’88 ‘, which corresponds to the letters HH and is combined with the greeting ‘Heil Hitler’, is always blocked.”
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