Jens Lehmann Sacked By Hertha Berlin After Racist Message To Sky Pundit

Former Arsenal goalkeeper Jens Lehmann has been sacked from his role at Hertha Berlin after apparently sending a racist message to fellow pundit Dennis Aogo.

Before Sky Germany's coverage of Manchester City vs Paris Saint-Germain, the 51-year-old sent a WhatsApp message to former Germany international Aogo - now working as a pundit - asking: "Is Dennis actually your Quotenschwarzer [token black guy]?"

Aogo posted a screenshot of the message on Instagram with the caption: "Wow, are you serious? This message was probably not meant for me." (translation per The Athletic's Raphael Honigstein).

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The former Schalke and Hamburg player, who earned 12 caps for Germany, shared the screenshot late on Tuesday evening, after the Champions League semi-final second leg had concluded.

Lehmann has apologised via Twitter for his comments, but the former Germany international has already reportedly been let go by Hertha Berlin, where he was a member of the Bundesliga club's supervisory board.

A translation of Lehmann's tweet is: "In a private message from my mobile phone to Dennis Aogo, an impression was created for which I apologised in conversation with Dennis.

"As a former national player he is very knowledgeable and has a great presence and drives ratings to Sky."

Lehmann also reiterated his apology in a statement to German newspaper Bild and claimed to have phoned Aogo to apologise.

Aogo is yet to respond to that claim but it's clear from his initial comments that he believes Lehmann accidentally sent a message to him; that was rather meant to be about him and directed to someone else.

Lehmann, who played 200 games for Arsenal and was part of the club's Invincibles season, also won 61 caps for Germany. Since retirement, he has been a TV pundit and worked for Sky Germany. He took up his position with Hertha's board last year.

Following his dismissal, Hertha tweeted: "Such statements are in no way representative of the values that Hertha BSC stands for.

"We distance ourselves from all forms of racism and welcome the action taken by TENNOR Holding."

Featured image credit: PA Images

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Topics: Germany, Arsenal, Bundesliga

Alex Reid

Alex Reid is a writer at SPORTbible who’s previously strung words together for FourFourTwo, Boxing News, The Guardian and, yes, Cruise International (it’s about big ships, not Tom). Interests range from football and boxing to real sports like WWE and darts. He is not a cage fighter.

@otheralexreid