Alexander Gauland, vice chair of anti-immigration party, deputy leader of Alternative for Germany, was quoted Sunday, May 29, 2016, as telling the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper: “People find him good as a footballer. But they don’t want to have a Boateng as their neighbor.”

In his statement, Gauland was referring to soccer star, Jerome Boateng, born in Berlin from a Ghanaian father, and it seems like people in Germany would not want the latter as their neighbor.

Bayern Munich defender Boateng is a stalwart of Germany’s national football team and is likely to feature in Germany’s starting eleven at next month’s European Championship, along with third-generation Turkish-German winger Mesut Özil and other players with non-exclusively German backgrounds.

Dissatisfaction with the chancellor Angela Merkel’s welcoming stance towards refugees and her easygoing strategy with them, made a great push in to propel the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany to strong results in regional elections this year.

Gauland’s comments were stated days after supporters of German anti-Islam group Pegida criticized a confectioner’s decision to print images of non-white soccer players on its chocolate bars instead of the usual picture of a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy.