German football club Schalke and their management are busy doing damage control and public relations work after a curious threat of protests and massive outrage over the team’s club song.

The Bundesliga club is getting waves of protest emails, boycott threats and petitions after the German Muslim community began venting their anger over a passage of the club’s song they feel is blasphemous.

Here is the song, translated into English as it appears on the club’s website.
Blue and White

Blue and white, how I love you
Blue and white, forever true
Blue and white is just like heaven born
Blue and white are the colours we have always worn


If we had a kingdom for us to make
It would resemble Schalke and no mistake
All the girls, oh so young and fair
Would sport a blue and white ribbon tied up in her hair


Mohammed was a prophet who
Knew nothing of football, that much is true
But of all the colours shining bright
The ones he thought up were our royal blue and white


A thousand fires in the night
Have brought us lots of pleasure and delight
A thousand friends all standing side by side
Will make sure FC Schalke will never die

In bold is the passage in question.

The boycotts have been threatened if club officials do not change the part of the song deemed insulting to the feelings of Muslim. An unnamed Schalke spokesman vowed to take the accusations seriously, saying the club plans to hire an Islam expert to investigate the blasphemous charge.

The Central Council of Muslims criticized the fact that the official club song did not show sufficient respect towards Prophet Mohammad. Tensions among Muslims are high at the moment in Germany after a recent Islamophobic courtroom killing of a pregnant Muslim woman by a neo-Nazi in the eastern city of Dresden.

While it’s understandable that Muslims could have an issue with the passage of the song. The main question remains why have the fans waited until now to speak out against the song, which is not a new club song and for which the lyrics were written in 1924.

This issue is far from over.

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