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Online debate raged in Germany on Wednesday after supporters of anti-Islam group Pegida criticised Ferrero's decision to print images of non-white football players on its Kinder bars instead of the usual picture of a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy.
Ferrero, an Italian company, temporarily changed the pictures to celebrate the European Football Championship, which kicks off on June 10 in France.
The new packaging shows childhood pictures of players such as Jerome Boateng, son of a Ghanaian immigrant, and Ilkay Gundogan, whose parents were born in Turkey.
"They will stop at nothing. Are they really being sold like that? Or is that a joke?" the account operator of Pegida BW Bodensee wrote in a post.
Germany won the soccer World Cup in 1990 with an all-white team. The squad that won in 2014 included Boateng as well as Sami Khedira, whose father is Tunisian, and Mesut Ozil, grandson of a Turkish guest worker.
Reinhard Grindel, head of the German soccer association DFB, said the Pegida supporters' comments were distasteful.
"The German national soccer team is one of the best examples of successful integration and millions of people in Germany are proud of this team because it is as it is," Grindel said.
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