“No war in that sense”
Ex-Gladbach professional sees “huge fake”
3/11/2022 8:26 am
Tobias Levels plays for Borussia Mönchengladbach, FC Ingolstadt and Fortuna Düsseldorf in the Bundesliga. Even during his career, he worries more than others and deals with things outside of football. More recent theories by the former professional are now causing frowns.
Tobias Levels has played 254 games in the Bundesliga and the second division for Borussia Mönchengladbach, Fortuna Düsseldorf and FC Ingolstadt. The defender is a solid professional footballer. He scores three goals and gets sent off once. With Borussia Mönchengladbach and FC Ingolstadt he rises as second division champion. He is a reflective kicker and also thinks about things besides football. The results of recent reflection are now causing frowns, once again: Because in his podcast “Health Resolutions”, Levels causes the second scandal within a few weeks.
Levels claims that the images from the war zones are a “huge fake”. Instead of current material from the Ukraine, the world would be presented with footage from the Yugoslav war or from the destruction in Syria. “We were sold things for pictures from Kyiv, where buildings are on fire (…), which were pictures from the Yugoslav war in Belgrade in 1999,” says the former Bundesliga professional, who actually wanted to shed light on nutritional myths in his show.
“No war in that sense”
There is also no “war in that sense,” announces Levels on the streaming service Spotify. “Someone doesn’t march in there and say: ‘Oho, now I’m going to get Ukraine because NATO has fooled me for years, and then I’ll rule the whole world. Then it’s Poland’s turn, then Germany’s turn, Holland and Belgium. ‘” That’s big nonsense, analyzes Levels. “There is no war going on, and certainly not against civilians.” Russian President Vladimir Putin only wants to cleanse Ukraine of neo-Nazis and fight the “deep state”.
Ukraine, on the other hand, “fired on its own people in an orchestrated manner to get things going”. The “99.9 percent lying media” held the next conditioning with the portrayal of the media “two years after the pandemic and Black Lives Matter”. “Everything that comes from the media can be reversed. Then you’re on the right side.” He himself used to think that Putin was a “madman and dictator”. The West, however, is “an empire of lies”.
The former soccer professional had already attracted attention in the past as a supporter of conspiracy theories: he once announced that Joe Biden’s election as US President was not legal. He had described the corona pandemic as a “folk fool”. “An alleged pandemic has had us under control for almost two years. Every day we are bombarded with content and measures by the media and politicians. It’s time that we take a closer look at the pandemic and try to shed some light on it,” said Levels, the has now set up his own vegan food company.
“I don’t fit in there”
Levels ended his career in 2018. “Honestly, it was enough for me. I love football, but not the business around it. I don’t fit in there. Sporty yes, but not as a person,” he later told the magazine “11 Friends”. When the fans of Fortuna Düsseldorf once declared their defender a scapegoat, he cried on the pitch. “Many football fans still believe: ‘Anyone who earns that much, I can finish off every week.’ It’s a lot worse now that everyone can add their two cents via social media.”
During his career he became a vegan, completed his training as a holistic health consultant and is still training to become a naturopath. Self-reflection is a big topic. “I don’t need lifestyle vegans. The real change has to happen in people’s minds. Then we can get climate change under control. And a little more respect for sure.”
Even during his career, Levels thinks more about it than many of his colleagues. “Sometimes I would have wished for myself: just driving to training, playing and not worrying about the rest.”