Old Incident Of Turkish Footballer’s Sexist Comment On A Woman Referee Shared With A Misleading Narrative…

A post is going viral on social media claiming Turkish midfielder Karim Demirbay first made a sexist comment on a woman referee and then while refereeing a junior girl’s league football match as a punishment, he abused his power and unfairly issued eight red cards. The post claims that he did not lament on his actions but stood firm with his belief that ‘women should have no place in a man’s sport’.

However, when we investigated the incident, we found that some parts of the post are not true. Moreover, the incident is being presented in a way that encourages misogyny and projects Demirbay as an icon of misogyny.

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In the post above, we can see a photo of a female referee confronting a player on a football field. The description of the incident seen in the photo is given as such: “A German female referee gave a Red Card to Turkish player, Karim Demirbay. On his way out, he looked at her and told her “you should stick to the kitchen”.

The referee wrote that in her report and FIFA ruled that he will be suspended for 5 matches and as a part of his suspension, he will officiate one women football match.

While refereeing the match he issued 8 red cards to 8 different female players.

When asked why did he did that, he replied: because women should stick to the kitchen!

Ob boy, this guy is really stubborn!”

The post has received over 2200 shares in the last few days. Many of the users in the comment section hailed him for his actions. Some condemned him too. Few users also commented that the post is misleading and he apologized to the referee.

Let us find out what is the truth of this incident.

Fact Check

We searched for news reports on this incident by doing a simple keyword search on Google. We found plenty of reports on this incident. From the reports, we understand that the incident took place in 2015 during a Bundesliga 2 match. The player Karim Demirbay was playing for the German Football Club Fortuna Düsseldorf and scored two goals against FSV Frankfurt before being sent off the pitch after receiving a second yellow card in the match. As per the referee Bibiana Steinhaus’s report, Karim told her “women have no place in men’s football”, while walking off the field.

Read full report here – The Guardian | Archived Link

However, the reports also mention that Karim regretted his comments and called referee Steinhaus after the match to apologize to her. The post claims that FIFA penalized Demirbay for his comments. However, the Bundesliga and not FIFA fined him, since it was not an international match. As per a report by the Independent, Demirbay was fined 10000 Euros and was served a 5-match suspension by his club Fortuna Düsseldorf. The club also asked him to officiate a match between junior girls’ team of SSVG Haan and BW Langenberg.

BBC Sports also reported that Demirbay has apologized to Steinhaus. The report quotes Demirbay as follows “I am extremely sorry for having said what I did to Ms Steinhaus,” Demirbay said earlier this week. “I should never have said this sentence and it does not reflect my image of women.”

In addition, contrary to what has been claimed in the post, there are no reports of Demirbay abusing his power as a referee and issuing Red cards to girls indiscriminately while officiating their match. There was however some controversy over the choice of his attire for the match. Instead of showing up in regular T-Shirt and shorts attire worn by Football referees, Demirbay was seen wearing a long overcoat and pants.

However, the club Fortuna Düsseldorf clarified that during junior league matches referees usually wear casual clothes and there was nothing wrong with Demirbay wearing casual clothes as the referee for the match. This clarification was made on their Facebook page when they posted pictures of Demirbay officiating the match.

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Furthermore, if we assume the claim that he abused his power during the match and sent eight girls off the field for his misogynistic view, then the club and even FIFA should ban him forever. As per FIFA’s code of conduct, “Everyone has the right to protection from discrimination, harassment, abuse and exploitation – be it physical, emotional or sexual abuse or exploitation, neglect, bullying or discrimination on account of age, race, skin colour, ethnic, national or social origin, gender, disability, language, religion, political opinion or any other opinion, wealth, inequality, birth or any other status, sexual orientation or any other reason.”

FIFA also has provisions for strict action against any individual affiliated to body and engages in or promotes any sort of discrimination. However, he continues to play international football representing Turkey and German Bundesliga club Bayer Leverkusen. Thus, it is unlikely that after apologizing for his initial comments he would do something even more sexist and commit a career suicide. Hence, this part also seems concocted by the misogynists on social media.

Conclusion

From our investigation, it is clear that Turkish footballer Karim Demirbay had made sexist comments on a female referee. However, he apologized later and fairly officiated a girl’s football match as a punishment. The claims of him being non-apologetic and standing on his view that women should ‘stick to the kitchen’ despite being punished are false.