Mexican Soccer Club Apologizes for Referencing Nazi Joseph Goebbels in Twitter Post About Goal Ruling

Shiryn Ghermezian

Inside Estadio Jalisco, the home stadium of Atlas FC located in Guadalajara, Mexico. Photo: Joel Espinosa via Wikimedia Commons

Atlas FC, a Mexican professional soccer team, said on Monday that it is “deeply sorry” for mentioning Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels in a Twitter post about an offside ruling during the team’s game over the weekend.

“We reiterate our solidarity, friendship and affection for the Jewish community and all those who have been victims of barbarity as we reaffirm our commitment to work together as a society and stop defamation, distortion of information and lies as a petty way of seeking notoriety by harming others,” the team further said in a released statement.

Atlas won 1-0 against the Major League Soccer (MLS) team New York City FC (NYCFC) in the Leagues Cup on Sunday night. The New York-based team thought it scored a late equalizer against Atlas but the video assistant referee overturned the match official’s decision and ruled it out for offside.

The ruling led to a dispute on social media and on Monday morning, Atlas posted a message on its Spanish language Twitter account defending the decision to rule out the goal.

“It is unfortunate how ‘influencers’, media people, ‘analysts’ manipulate by generating ideas of ‘supposed help’, but remembering what Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Information (Hitler’s right-hand man) said, which they apply to perfection: ‘lie, lie, lie because something will stick, the bigger the lie, the more people will believe it,’” read the tweet, as reported by The Athletic. The Twitter post reportedly included a screenshot proving that NYCFC’s Justin Haak was offside.

There is no evidence that Goebbels said the “bigger the lie” quote but it is often attributed to him, according to the Jewish Virtual Library.

Atlas has since been deleted the Twitter post and issued a statement later on Monday apologizing for the remark, saying it is “deeply sorry for any confusion that the use of a sensitive and unnecessary reference in a tweet this morning may have caused.”

“WE REJECT and are against any value that said regime represented in one of the darkest times of humanity. It is precisely what should be avoided in all aspects,” the statement read. “We will open the relevant investigations to understand the origin of the tweet and we will act accordingly internally. We call for fair play also off the pitch, where we all add to the spectacle, co-existence and the development of our football.”

Atlas will next play Toronto on Sunday in the Leagues Cup, which has teams from MLS and Liga MX, Mexico’s top professional soccer division, competing in a month-long tournament.