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“How much calculation is there behind ‘We kick Corona’?”

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"How much calculation is there behind 'We kick Corona'?"

SPD Vice Kevin Kühnert (32) has joined the debate about the vaccination status of national player Joshua Kimmich. The politician considers the criticism to be justified – but also brought a possible calculation behind the charity campaign “We kick Corona” into play.

“Anyone who founds an anti-corona initiative as a national player like Kimmich last year exposes himself to the question and has to be asked a year later why he is so aggressively sowing doubts about the vaccination issue,” said Kühnert in the FAZ-Interview. In this regard, he lacks the “consistency of argumentation,” he stressed.

The progress of the pandemic does not depend “on Joshua Kimmich’s vaccination,” emphasized Kühnert. But: “A national player, a professional in this category is practically a medium-sized company nowadays, and I am interested in the question: How much calculation was there behind an initiative like ‘We kick Corona’ by Kimmich?”

With the initiative that Kimmich founded together with teammate Leon Goretzka in March 2020, over six million euros have now been raised for charitable purposes.

“If it was more of a show thing like: I’ll create a good mood here with the majority of society because, as a well-earning footballer, I am occasionally exposed to criticism that I earn too much, and I mate a little with the caregivers around in Germany who seem to have a problem right now, “said Kühnert. “But when it comes to getting vaccinated and actually doing something about the pandemic, I put on an expression of concern. I don’t find that conclusive, and he has to be confronted with that immediately.”

Joshua Kimmich: Backing from national coach Hansi Flick

For his part, national coach Hansi Flick stood behind his midfielder in the vaccination debate. “He does not belong in the pillory,” said the national coach FAZ: “I find it regrettable that this discussion is now being carried out on his back, it has not passed him by without a trace. What is currently happening to him in the discussion is wrong and unfair.”

Sports philosopher Volker Schürmann, professor at the German Sport University Cologne, described the debate as “absurd”: “I don’t understand the excitement about Joshua Kimmich’s vaccination status and consider it very inappropriate,” he said Munich Mercury and the TZ.

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