The professional footballer has sparked a big debate.
(Photo: ddp images / Xinhua /)
Düsseldorf Mesut Özil. Once upon a time there was a great footballer. One who recognized the gaps like no other and who punished every positional error of the opposing defense with precise passes. Someone who became world champion, who celebrated the German, Spanish and English cup victory with his clubs – and who has been one of Europe’s best for years.
Basically nothing has changed in that regard.
But Özil, the successful midfielder with Turkish roots, who was born in Gelsenkirchen in 1988, has since his spectacular resignation from the German national team a few days ago is no longer just a German football star who earns millions abroad – he has become a symbol.
On Twitter, he distributed a three-part declaration of resignation, peppered with criticism of Reinhard Grindel, the President of the German Football Association (DFB). She let the debate about his photo with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan boil again after the messed up World Cup in Russia.
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But what does Özil actually stand for?
His opponents see in him the ungrateful football legionnaire, whose loyalty is to Turkey and its autocratic president – instead of the country of birth with its constitutional values, which made his great career possible in the first place. “Shame resignation”, etched the “Bild” newspaper and criticized the midfielder harshly for days.
His defenders do not applaud the Erdogan photo. But they see the sometimes badly racist insults that Özil complains about “hate mail” and “threatening phone calls” as a far greater problem. Just like the collective silence of DFB officials like national coach Joachim Löw. After all, it was Löw who promoted Özil and who owes a lot to Özil in terms of sport.
The fact that the photo of a footballer with an autocrat moved the minds of the nation for weeks can not be explained satisfactorily with the embarrassing qualifying round at the World Cup, the summer slump and the hot weather. Especially since very few soccer players are known for considered actions beyond the grass.
Hardly anyone was upset about a picture of ex-national player Lothar Matthäus with Russia’s similarly authoritarian President Vladimir Putin during the World Cup. The fact that Philipp Lahm handed over the trophy to that Putin at the awards ceremony in Moscow – that didn’t bother anyone either. And that the next World Cup will be played in Qatar, a country with a highly dubious human rights record, nobody is talking about it for a long time.
So why is the excitement about Özil so great?
The current debate includes the discussion about the rejection of refugees at the German border, about which the federal government almost fell out. A petitesse electrifies two camps because it touches a new, dominant line of conflict in German society.
In the past, Hartz IV and eco-tax were debated, but today almost every heated debate revolves around identity politics. Integration, immigration, racism, home – now also “Özil” – these are the stimulating words of an overstimulated nation.
Özil’s sentence that he was “in the eyes of Grindel (…) German if we win and an immigrant if we lose”, met the feeling of many people with a migration background. The fact that Özil critics, mostly Germans without any experience of discrimination, now wanted to explain to them what racism is did not help much.
The fact that DFB President Grindel now admits at least one mistake speaks for itself. “Any form of racist hostility is unbearable, unacceptable and intolerable,” he said on Thursday. “That was true in the Jérôme Boateng case, it was true for Mesut Özil, it was also true for all players at the grassroots who have a migration background.”
However, he ruled out a resignation. With the association, he finally wants to host the EM 2024. The decision will be made in September. The only competitor is of all places: Turkey.
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