Ralf Rangnick, Austria's national coach, excluded three footballers for singing homophobic chants. Guido Burgstaller, Marco Grüll and Niklas Hedl, international footballers for Rapid Vienna, were dropped from the selection list that was scheduled to play two friendly matches against Slovakia (March 23) and Turkey (March 26).
The 65-year-old German Rangnick announced the measure on Tuesday during the press conference in which he presented those summoned. The event aroused great interest in Austria after the scandal that broke out on February 25 in the epilogue of the derby between Rapid and Austria Vienna. Rapid won and their players, accompanied by some leaders, met the fans in the stadium to celebrate the victory by singing songs with a megaphone. “We are not violets [los colores del Austria] with a warm butt!”, the football players shouted. They were joined by Steffen Hofmann, the manager, who used the loudspeaker to call the other team's players “sons of bitches.” Rapid had not won the derby since 2019. The insults were recorded and published on social networks. The incident caused major social unrest in the following weeks.