German far-right politician blames football loss on immigrant players

A deputy leader of a Germany right-wing party has come under fire after she implied that her country's football team recently lost to France because of players from immigrant backgrounds.

Beatrix von Storch, a member of the Alternative for Germany [AfD] party made the comments on Thursday after Germany lost to France in the semi-finals of the Euro 2016 championships.

"Maybe next time the German NATIONAL TEAM should play again," von Storch said on Twitter, before later deleting the post.

Five German footballers who played during the 2-0 loss came from immigrant backgrounds.

Jerome Boateng has a Ghanaian father, both Emre Can and Mesut Ozil were born in Germany to Turkish parents, Shkodran Mustafi's parents are an Albanian and Leroy Sane's father is French-Senegalese.

Both Boateng and Ozil were part of the team which won the World Cup in 2014.

The politician's ill-thought-out tweet has been widely denounced by Germans on social media.

Translation: "Pure foolishness."

Translation: "Beatrix von Storch is not only a dumb racist but she is too cowardly to stand by her words."

Translation: "Let's stick together and just ignore Beatrix von Storch."

This is not the first time her party has made inflammatory comments about footballers from non-bio-Deutsch ("organic German") origins.

Last month, AfD vice-chairman Alexander Gauland told local media that people would not want Boateng, born in Berlin to a Ghanaian father and German mother, as their neighbour.