Photo: imago/Marco Wolf
The fact that Mia Zschocke wants to start the European Championship with the German national handball team on Saturday borders on a small miracle. She and her teammate Amelie Berger had unleashed an avalanche with their termination without notice at the former German champions Borussia Dortmund, as a result of which more than 30 handball players reported how they had been psychologically terrorized by the now former Dortmund coach André Fuhr for years.
Several people in the German Handball Association (DHB) are said to have known about complaints about Fuhr years ago, but the association only parted ways with him as a youth national coach in the summer – when Zschocke and Berger went public. The fact that Zschocke is still available to the DHB as a national player is a vote of confidence that many others would probably no longer be able to muster.
This is especially true when you consider that it took almost two months and also a detailed and frightening report in the “Spiegel” before the association did more than just part with Fuhr after the dismissals of its top players. Just last week, the DHB announced the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry to clarify “which environments are prone to violence and how structures can be further developed in terms of the best possible prevention and an early warning system”. In plain language, this should probably mean: What went wrong? And how can a recurrence be prevented?
Fuhr is said to have harassed players in a variety of ways at his Bundesliga stations in Dortmund and previously in Metzingen and Blomberg for 16 years, according to their statements in the “Spiegel”: The allegations range from constant insults and bullying to the ban on toilet breaks in training, overuse of injured people to surveillance of recreational activities and sexual harassment. Apparently he was always protected by club officials when players complained and asked for help.
Mia Zschocke is now playing in Norway, Berger in Bensheim. Both report much more comfortable training conditions there. Although the cosmos in professional women’s handball is quite manageable and other former players have apparently reported on Fuhr’s methods before with their new clubs and the DHB, the umbrella organization is said to have remained inactive.
An accusation that weighs heavily on sports director Axel Kromer in particular, as he not only promoted Fuhr to national coach of the juniors. Kromer is said to have only half-heartedly followed up hints about his misconduct later on. Nevertheless, as usual, he traveled to the team for the training camp before the current European Championship. Maybe he should have done without that this time and focused on his own error analysis. The fact that the DHB wants to take responsibility for its statements and promote a “culture of looking” must have sounded like sheer mockery in the ears of Zschocke, Berger and many other victims.
From a German perspective, the circumstances for the European Championships starting this Friday in Slovenia, North Macedonia and Montenegro could hardly be worse. Nevertheless, national coach Markus Gaugisch seems to have managed to develop good team chemistry with a mixture of open discussions and a training atmosphere full of joy and support. »Mia is there, she has found joy in handball again, is super happy in her new club. She absolutely deserves it. As a team, we also want to represent a safe place where she feels comfortable,” reported captain Emily Bölk recently from the EM training camp.
But it is also true that, apart from Zschocke, there are apparently no other victims in the EM squad. It should be easier for the other players around Bölk to talk about medal dreams, which after the quite convincing last friendlies against Hungary (31:20) and Romania (29:29) this week don’t seem utopian either. At the start of the preliminary round, the German selection meets Poland on Saturday. Then in Group D against co-hosts Montenegro and finally against World Cup fourth-placed Spain. Should the German selection really make it to the semi-finals for the first time since 2008, one can only hope that the success does not overshadow the much more important processing of the allegations of abuse.
