His athletic prowess no longer lit up the playing fields, yet the German star provoked more and more reactions on stages beyond football.
“They burn their Qurans. They close their mosques. They ban their schools. They kill their holy men. Men are forced into camps and their families are forced to live with Chinese men. Women are forced to marry Chinese men.”
It wasn’t the remark of a president, exile, or a renowned activist. The lines were penned by Mesut Özil in 2019. He shared them on social media as a protest, arguing that in Xinjiang, the Uyghur Muslim minority faced grave mistreatment.
Özil leveraged the platform that football gave him to amplify his message. That appeared to be a new calling for him. Unsurprisingly, the response was swift and loud: China Central Television chose not to air Arsenal’s Premier League clash against Manchester City the following weekend, and Özil was removed from the Chinese versions of the popular Pro Evolution Soccer game. NetEase, a major Chinese tech and gaming company involved in distributing the game from Konami, echoed the sentiment, while Özil warned that he was weighing his options about keeping the English club’s roster if his remarks continued to inflame Chinese fans and disrupt the sport’s spirit of peace and harmony.
Mesut Özil disappears from FIFA Online and Pro Evolution Soccer in China
Arsenal initially tried to distance itself from his comments, but the damage was already done. In truth, Özil no longer appeared the same force on the pitch or in the broader sporting world. The once dazzling playmaker seemed increasingly detached from a landscape that revolved around goals and assists.
In 2019, the German star of Turkish descent married Turkish model Amine Gülse in Istanbul. The ceremony carried a striking guest — the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — a move many interpreted as a public display of political alignment in a region where stability has often been elusive.
Özil’s ties to Erdoğan had already drawn criticism in Germany, contributing to his decision to step away from the national team, with which he had won the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. “I am German when we win, an immigrant when we lose,” he said at the time of his retirement in July 2018, a statement that reflected deep tensions over identity, loyalty, and national pride.
The ensuing controversy intensified. Critics pressed Özil on perceived double standards, asking why his concerns about racism in Germany did not extend to the situation in Turkey. European champion Deniz Naki, a Kurd and former teammate, challenged him, pointing to the broader questions of how race and nationality are perceived and talked about in football and in society at large.
The episode underscored how a single public stance can reverberate across sports, politics, and personal relationships. It highlighted the delicate balance athletes face when their platforms intersect with global politics, cultural issues, and national sentiments — a balancing act that can elevate a player into a symbol and invite intense scrutiny from multiple directions.