Germany midfielder Mesut Ozil announced his retirement from international football with immediate effect yesterday, hitting out at what he perceived to be unfair discrimination surrounding his meeting with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in May.
Ozil, 29, was part of the Germany squad that exited the World Cup in Russia at the group stage and was the target of criticism for his performances as well as his meeting with Erdogan who has been accused of human rights abuses.
The Arsenal playmaker has Turkish ancestry and defended his actions in a lengthy statement, the first time he has publicly addressed the matter.
“For me, having a picture with President Erdogan wasn’t about politics or elections, it was about me respecting the highest office of my family’s country,” Ozil said in a statement on Twitter.
“My job is a football player and not a politician, and our meeting was not an endorsement of any policies. The treatment I have received from the DFB (German Football Association) and many others makes me no longer want to wear the German national team shirt,” Ozil added.
“I feel unwanted and think what I have achieved since my international debut in 2009 has been forgotten. People with racially discriminative backgrounds should not be allowed to work in the largest football federation in the world that has players from dual-heritage families. Attitudes like theirs simply do not reflect the players they supposedly represent.
“It is with a heavy heart and after much consideration that because of recent events, I will no longer be playing for Germany at international level whilst I have this feeling of racism and disrespect,” he added.
“I used to wear the German shirt with such pride and excitement, but now I don’t.” 
Ozil and his teammate Ilkay Gundogan Gundogan, who both have Turkish roots, were booed by German fans in pre-World Cup friendlies after posing with Erdogan in May in London. 
Manchester City midfielder Gundogan presented him with a signed club shirt on which 
he had written “to my president”.
After the tournament, Ozil came in for stinging criticism in Germany for the side’s shock first-round defeat at the World Cup. Team boss Oliver Bierhoff suggested after the debacle that Germany should have considered dropping Ozil after his failure to explain himself over the Erdogan picture. 
Bierhoff later backtracked, saying that he “was wrong” to put Ozil under undue pressure, but the picture continued to draw scorn from fans on social media. 
Earlier former captain Lothar Matthaeus accused Ozil of no longer looking comfortable in the Germany shirt.
Ozil said he could abide criticism of his performance on the pitch but not when it was linked to his ethnic background.
“If a newspaper or pundit finds fault in a game I play in, then I can accept this,” he said.
“But what I can’t accept are German media outlets repeatedly blaming my dual-heritage and a simple picture for a bad World Cup on behalf of an entire squad,” he added, calling it “right-wing propaganda”.
“This crosses a personal line that should never be crossed, as newspapers try to turn the nation of Germany against me.”
He angrily denounced the broadside by Matthaeus, who he noted “met with another world leader a few days back and received almost no media criticism” in an apparent reference to an appearance with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 
Ozil also railed against an unnamed sponsor which he said removed him from promotional videos for the World Cup after the pictures with Erdogan emerged. 
“For them, it was no longer good to be seen with me and (they) called the situation ‘crisis management’,” he said.





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