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The President of the non-profit organisation Deutscher Fußball Botschafter e.V. (German Football Ambassador), Roland Bischof, visited the German national players İlkay Gündoğan and Kai Havertz at the DFB training camp in Herzogenaurach. With him he had the award in his luggage, which was supposed to be presented to Gündoğan at the award ceremony at the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin in May, after he was elected as the winner of the 2022 Public Award. As he was unable to attend the award ceremony due to commitments with Manchester City, the official presentation was made at the adidas “Home Ground” after the DFB team’s final training session.
Gündoğan, who was heading to Budapest with the national team for the UEFA Nations League match against Hungary that same afternoon, was delighted with the fans’ vote, “I would like to thank everyone who voted for me to be the German Football Ambassador 2022 and I feel this is a great honour. Thank you very much!”
The award is linked to the support of a social cause – the audience winner chose the charity “Community Integrated Care” in Manchester, a national organisation that supports social and health promotion for disadvantaged people.
Bischof, who also took the opportunity to bring along Kai Havertz’ award, last year’s winner in the same category, was grateful for the opportunity of this get-together, “The players face a very heavy workload almost the whole year, and on top of that there were always travel difficulties due to Corona, which doesn’t make it any easier. So, I would like to sincerely thank the German Football Association for their uncomplicated and pragmatic help, so that İlkay Gündoğan and Kai Havertz could now receive their awards here personally in the circle of the national team.”
The two are not the only current national players who can now call themselves German Football Ambassadors. The club, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, previously awarded national goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen, Emre Can and Robin Gosens with the Public Award, as well as Joshua Kimmich and Leon Goretzka with the Honorary Award for their commitment with “WeKickCorona”.
