Bundesliga club sack midfielder over ties to an organisation linked to radical Islam

Anis Ben-Hatira has parted ways with Darmstadt after the club's president branded his support for Ansaar International "wrong"

Anis Ben-Hatira has been criticized for his work with the Ansaar International organisation (Getty)

Bundesliga club Darmstadt have released Tunisian midfielder Anis Ben-Hatira after he was revealed to have ties to an organisation with alleged links to the radical Islamic Salafist scene.

Darmstadt president Ruediger Fritsch says the club "feels Ben-Hatira's private humanitarian assistance for the organisation, the one he is serving, is wrong."

Ben-Hatira has been criticised for his work for Ansaar International — described by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia as "firmly interwoven in the German Salafist scene."

Salafism is an ultra-conservative branch of Sunni Islam.The word 'Salafi' itself stems from the Arabic phrase, 'as-salaf as-saliheen', which refers to the first three generations of Muslims (starting with the Companions of the Prophet), otherwise known as the Pious Predecessors

Darmstadt fans recently unfurled a banner calling on Ben-Hatira to distance himself from Ansaar.

But the the Berlin-born player was defiant, responding on Facebook, "Do you really think I'll let myself be intimidated by that?"

It is not the first time Ben-Hatira has found himself in controversy.

While at Eintracht Frankfurt, he was investigated by the German anti-doping authorities after posting a picture on Snapchat which showed a bottle of Lipotalon - a medicine that contains the banned substance dexamethasone - and syringes.

AP