The response to Mesut Özil’s national team departure demonstrates why he stepped away

Originally published in the Athletic

Mesut Özil sent an aftershock to the earthquake that was Germany’s disastrous World Cup campaign when he announced that he would be stepping away from the national team last month. The five-time German footballer of the year cited racism and scapegoating from the German media, fans, and the German Soccer Federation (DFB) officials as the reason he would stop representing his country of birth.

But Özil’s claims seem to have fallen on deaf ears.

“I think Mesut himself knows that racism within the national team and the DFB does not exist,” Toni Kroos, Özil’s international teammate, recently told German paper Bild.

This comes after another teammate in Thomas Müller said that “racism inside the national team never was an issue.”

What Kroos and Müller don’t see is their unintended contribution to the discrimination felt by Özil and others. When a person who has likely experienced little to no criticism for his national identity, religion, or race declares that racism doesn’t exist, it only adds to the already present frustration and disenchantment.

In Özil’s statement, posted to social media last month, he took aim at racist sentiments in Germany and particularly in the German media. “I am German when we win, but I am an immigrant when we lose,” he said. His greatest scorn, however, was saved for the DFB’s head, Reinhard Grindel. “I will no longer stand for being a scapegoat for his incompetence and inability to do his job properly,” Özil said.

Özil’s claims have added significance considering he was presented with a Bambi Award in 2010 for his successful integration into German society—somewhat perplexing considering he was born in the German city of Gelsenkirchen.

The tide quickly turned against Özil in May, however, when a picture of him posing with Turkey’s autocratic leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan made the rounds. The general public and media called for a response from Özil, but the playmaker chose to remain quiet and was backed by DFB officials like Oliver Bierhoff and Grindel. Their tune quickly changed following Germany’s dismissal from the World Cup.

Both men spoke publicly about Özil. Bierhoff said it may have been a mistake to bring him to the World Cup, while Grindel, a man with a history of trashing multiculturalism while he was in the Bundestag, Germany’s federal parliament, said Özil would now have to answer for his pre-tournament photo appearance.

To be clear, Özil’s photo with Erdogan and his subsequent defense of said photo are disappointing. Erdogan has cracked down on all vocal opposition in Turkey, including political opponents and the media. But the level of vitriol directed at Özil seems to carry a darker subtext. The palpable anger directed at Özil comes from a perceived lack of gratitude to Germany over his dual nationalities.

“[Such attitudes] foster right-wing nationalism and people forget in a globalized society we live in heterogeneous societies,” said Dr. Ansgar Thiel, director of the Institute of Sports Science at the Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, who released a paper last year on the loyalties of dual national footballers. “I think Germany has to be aware of the consequences of this discussion.”

With Özil stepping away, the consequence for the national team is losing a World Cup winner and the player who created more chances per 90 minutes than anyone else at the tournament. Özil has always had his detractors—those focused more on his body language than his contributions. But he’s also had fierce defenders in managers like Joachim Low and Arsene Wenger.

Özil stepping down from the national team may be a victory for the detractors. In a sense, he “let the racists win.” They’ll be happy to see the back of him and his languid running style. At the same time, anyone who has ever had to bear the role of ambassador for their nation, race, or religion will know Özil must feel a burden lifted. No matter how it was perceived by Özil or intended by German society, awarding an integration award to someone born and raised in Germany is a backhanded compliment at best, and at worst a reminder that you’ll never truly be “one of us.”

Özil now only has to worry about being an Arsenal player. He’s no longer the figurehead for Turkish-Germans or the lightning rod for racism on the German national team. Players like Ilkay Gündogan, who also had his photo taken Erdogan, and Jerome Boateng are now among the default representatives of multicultural Germany on the national team, whether they want to be or not. And because of this, the German federation and everyone involved in German society needs to take a good look at how the situation was handled. While the DFB has said they regret how the situation was handled (you don’t say), they’ve also vehemently denied the claims of racism.

But instead of putting out an ear to listen to his struggle, Özil has been met with a chorus of criticism, which all seems to indicate that Germans aren’t primarily concerned about Erdogan’s human rights record.

Lothar Matthäus—who had his own run-in with an autocrat in Vladimir Putin—completely sidestepped the racism issue by telling ESPN that he felt Özil’s time with the national team was over anyway due to poor performances. Footballing opinions aside, dealing with accusations of racism by ignoring them is probably not the best idea.

It could be worse, though. In a tone-deaf public statement, Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness responded to Özil’s claims of being subjected to racism with a textbook response on how not to respond to claims of racism.

“He last won a tackle before the 2014 World Cup,” Hoeness told Bild. “And now he and his s—– performance hide beyond this picture.”

It might be fair to say these are not the sort of introspective assessments Özil was hoping to inspire with his announcement. Grindel has since reflected on the handling of the issue and admitted he should have stood behind Özil. But that support hasn’t been shared by his teammates, like Müller and Kroos, who have simply dismissed his claims. Hoeness even doubled down on his previous criticism.

“This is the dark side of the emphasis on the ethnic side of national football teams,” Cas Mudde, a political scientist, author of the book Populism: A Very Short Introduction, and a German national team fan. “We have seen it in France too, after the (short) high of the 1998 multicultural team. Özil has always been judged very critically, which is in part because his type of play, which is kind of phlegmatic, which might look a bit lazy. This, together with his ethnic background and Muslim religion, makes him an easy target for critique as not a typical ‘German’ midfielder.”

This “dark side” has come more to light in Germany, and Europe in general, in recent years, as far-right-wing groups have found a public receptive to their nativist and anti-immigrant messages. In Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) is now the country’s main opposition party to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the third largest political party overall.

“What makes this so disturbing is that the critique came from DFB officials, who should, and will, have known how this came across in the highly charged political debate of this time, in which the Christian Social Union (CSU) and many in CDU are competing with the AfD over the nativist vote,” Mudde said. “While they were undoubtedly frustrated about Özil’s picture with Turkish president Erdogan, about which Özil is disappointedly unreflective, there is absolutely no excuse for fueling nativist sentiments.”

The ire directed at Özil is just a symptom of this rise of right-wing and nativist parties. And while Özil may be the highest profile dual national in Germany to have experienced this, he is certainly not the only one.

“German society is having a fundamental problem with racism and what Özil did is just one example, but actually many people with an immigrant background are living this reality day by day, especially people of Turkish, Arab, or African roots,” said Emran Feroz, a Stuttgart-based journalist covering immigration, refugee issues, and islamophobia. “I think that in terms of politics, there is in Germany this behavior that migrants, and especially migrants from Muslim majority countries, have to be loyal to the German state. More loyalty than is demanded from other immigrants.”

This entire episode shows that one of the more tiring accompaniments of experiencing racism is the doubt expressed by those who have never shared the experience. Özil says he stepped away from the national team because he was tired of being subjected to double standards. Whether or not his decision let “the racists win,” it’s clear there is little to no national interest in addressing the issues he brought up in his announcement. The German setup has a lot of reflecting to do. But when they look in the mirror, one person missing from that reflection will be Mesut Özil.