VFL Wolfsburg’s men’s and women’s teams will wear special rainbow jerseys this weekend in their games against Schalke and Bayer Leverkusen respectively, with the aim of promoting diversity and inclusion.
For the fourth year in a row, VfL Wolfsburg and Volkswagen are joining forces with the Autostadt to send out a colourful statement in support of diversity, underlining their social responsibility and status as social role models. This weekend, both the men’s and women’s first teams will wear shirts with a rainbow-coloured VW logo on the front when they respectively play in the Bundesliga against FC Schalke 04 and in the Women’s Bundesliga against Bayer 04 Leverkusen.
The shirt sees a simple shift of the VW sponsor logo colouring to a rainbow look. It complements the fact that, as well as VfL Wolfsburg’s professional sides, all of the club’s football teams, as well as over 65 partner clubs, have been taking to the pitch with rainbow-coloured captain's armbands since 2018. Using the slogan “For Diversity. Against Discrimination”, VfL Wolfsburg regularly make colourful statements in favour of an open society.
“Footballers are role models, and we are happy to use this status to campaign for a more open society,” said sporting director Marcel Schäfer. “Team sports are a wonderful example of how different strengths can benefit a team. We stand for the fact that everyone should be accepted in football and that racism, homophobia, sexism, and discrimination against senior citizens or people with disabilities have no place.”
“At the Volkswagen Group, we welcome the diversity of our workforce, our business partners and our customers,” said Elke Heitmüller, Head of Diversity Management at Volkswagen. “Age, gender, sexual orientation or cultural background play no role for us. We want to express this fundamental stance of our company once again this weekend via the colourful VW logo on the VfL jersey.”
Strong message, worth supporting. Let's hope it's heard.
