Angola arrived in Hanover airport in Germany on Saturday ahead of the World Cup finals with threats by neo-Nazis of a march on the day of one of their matches.
As the debutant West Africans became the third participating nation, after Togo and Costa Rica to set up camp ahead of the June 9-July 9 football showpiece, weekly magazine Der Spiegel broke the news about a planned anti-semitic neo-Nazi rally.
They are apparently planning on holding a protest in Leipzig, in the former East Germany, on June 21, where Angola will be playing Iran.
”The neo-Nazis want to use the World Cup to attract the eyes of the world on themselves,” wrote the magazine.
”On the internet they are calling to descend on Leipzig on June 21 where they intend on demonstrating their support for the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has denied the Holocaust and refuses to accept the right of Israel to exist.”
Controversial hardline Ahmadinejad has often caused outrage throughout the world for making allusions and claims that the Holocaust is a myth and that Israel should be ”wiped from the map”.
He also claimed in December that Israel was a cancerous tumour and should be located in the territories of Germany and Austria.
President of the German police Konrad Freiberg told Der Spiegel that such a protest in Leipzig could cause a ”state of emergency for the police,” as they ”would not be able to ensure the safety of such protests during the World Cup”.
Meanwhile, the Black Antelopes of Angola will set up camp in Celle, in the north of Germany, before attending a welcoming reception on Saturday evening in the old town.
Aside from Iran, Angola are pitted alongside Mexico and Portugal in Group D. – Sapa-AFP