Bending it like Beckenbauer

HAMBURG: German soccer team Eintracht Fuhlsbuettel have been nearly unbeatable for the past three seasons — but no matter how much they dominate their division, they can never be promoted. For the only prison soccer team in Germany, which plays in a regional league, away games are not an option. The team includes convicted rapists, killers and drug dealers.

The around 30-strong squad is made up of inmates from ‘Santa Fu’, a part of Hamburg’s Fuhlsbuettel prison which is home to some of Germany’s most notorious criminals, serving terms of between four years and life. But soccer coach Gerhard Mewes, who founded the team about 25 years ago, said for him they are just part of a team and ‘the beautiful game’ is a way the soccer-playing inmates — none of whom are German — can improve their lives.

“Soccer is a therapy in here. They have to speak German, they have to obey rules, they have to play as a team and with a structure — that’s a lot more than they are used to,” said the 62-year-old with the friendly smile. “I just don’t see them as killers or muggers anymore.”

Mewes, a retired civil servant who volunteers his time, coaches the team every Wednesday and attends their Sunday fixtures during the season. For the inmates, playing soccer in Mewes’s squad is the highlight of their week. For many, the coach is their only link to the outside.

“Soccer is just a little slice of freedom in here,” said midfielder Demirgil, in jail for five years for manslaughter. “When you’re on the pitch all you do is play, you even forget that you are locked up,” he added. Like the other inmates, Demirgil could only be identified by his first name. The players’ fellow inmates hold the club in high esteem, even more so since they ended the past three years at the top of their league in the Kreisklasse, the lowest division in German soccer.

But this season the club, named after the northern part of Hamburg where the prison is located, has suffered. Some of the best players have moved on after completing their sentences or have been deported!

While public attitudes might be ambivalent, other prisons across Germany are now planning to establish their own teams, said Mewes, who also helps inmates nearing their release date to find a club to join. “A lot of them don’t have anything to return to,” he said. “It just gives them a point of entry back into society.”