As Europe wrestles with an unprecedented wave of refugees, Germany's two biggest football teams have offered their support to migrants arriving in the country.
German
champion Bayern Munich announced Thursday it will donate €1 million
($1.1 million) to relevant charitable projects, while the team's
players
will walk out for its next match holding hands with young refugees.
Thousands
of people, mostly from war-torn Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, have
poured into Germany, with hundreds filling a Munich train station
earlier this week.
Bayern will also set up a training camp which will offer meals and German language classes to children.
Germany's
government said last month it expected up to 800,000 asylum seekers to
come from Syria this year alone -- four times more than in 2014.
"FC Bayern see it as
its social responsibility to help those fleeing and suffering children,
women and men, to support them and accompany them in Germany," team CEO
Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said in a statement.
"FC
Bayern is taking a stand and I am happy about the club's involvement,"
added Munich mayor Dieter Reiter. "That is why I happily approved the
city's support."
The plight of
the refugees has prompted an outpouring of support from German football
teams and fans alike, with supporters at a number of matches last
weekend displaying banners stating: "Refugees welcome."
Borussia
Dortmund, one of the few teams to have challenged Bayern's dominance in
recent years, invited 200 refugees to attend its match against Danish
team Odds Ballklubb last week.
Dortmund also issued a
statement declaring that Germany needs migrants -- and that the
country's social security system will fall apart without them.
Mainz,
which competes alongside Bayern and Dortmund in Germany's top division,
also welcomed refugees to its tie against Hannover.
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