German Greens vote to expel city mayor over online racial slur

Boris Palmer posted comment online about former footballer Dennis Aogo

The leadership of Germany's high-flying Green party is facing the first test of its authority ahead of national elections in September, after a prominent Green mayor posted a racial slur about a German national footballer on social media.

Regional leaders of the party voted at the weekend to expel Boris Palmer, the provocative mayor of Tubingen, over a Facebook post in which he referred to the former Germany international Dennis Aogo as an awful racist", in reference to an unsubstantiated anecdote on social media that the footballer, who has a Nigerian father and a German mother, had once bragged about the size of his penis, using the n-word.