Gerald Asamoah and the Black Eagles

Winner

Athlete Advocate of the Year Award 2022 Winner

Gerald and the Black Eagles

Asamoah

Football

Germany

German footballer Gerald Asamoah and the Black Eagles (Schwarze Adler), the extraordinary film which records the experiences of black players in German football, are winners of the Laureus Athlete Advocate of the Year Award.

Asamoah, who played 43 times for the German national team between 2001 and 2006, is a leading campaigner in the fight against racism.

The feature-length film allows black players of the German team, including Asamoah, to tell their personal stories. What hurdles did they have to overcome? What prejudices and hostility did they face? Accompanied by rarely shown archive pictures, director Torsten Körner lets different generations of players have their say.

The film also sheds light on how spectators, the media and German society deal with the issue of racism - and how slowly, seen from today's perspective, something has changed about this way of dealing with it in recent decades. The film has won multiple awards (Deutschen Fernsehpreis and Grimme Which - which are Germany’s most important TV awards) and has helped to change the perspective on the sport.

Gerald and the Black Eagles Acceptance Speech

I’m very, very proud on behalf of my Black Eagles team. It’s a pleasure to do the work that I am doing. We have a long way to go, but we are still fighting against racism. I hope we can do it. Never stop fighting against racism.

GERALD ASAMOAH

Ghanian-born Asamoah, has been leading educational campaigns in schools and speaking out against racism. In June 2020, he joined the group of players and board members across the Bundesliga who reacted to the protests across the world following the murder of George Floyd. He said: “I'll work even harder to visit schools and teach young people that we're all the same."

In January 2016, he received the 2015 FIFA Fair Play Award on behalf of football organisations and clubs around the world, as he worked to support refugees in the face of conflict.

He said: “I’m very, very proud on behalf of my Black Eagles team. It’s a pleasure to do the work that I am doing. We have a long way to go, but we are still fighting against racism. I hope we can do it. Never stop fighting against racism.”