Former Arsenal and Actual Madrid footballer Mesut Ozil has transitioned into politics after becoming a member of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s celebration.
The retired German midfielder, 36, was named on the ruling AK Get together’s (AKP) Central Determination and Administration Board throughout a celebration congress on Sunday.
Ozil, who’s of Turkish descent, obtained criticism later in his profession attributable to his relationship with Mr Erdogan.
He retired from the German nationwide crew in 2018, 5 years earlier than his wider retirement from the sport, after a photo of him meeting the Turkish president in London brought on uproar.
Reinhard Grindel, who was the top of Germany’s soccer federation on the time, accused the gamers of permitting themselves to be “exploited” by Mr Erdogan for political functions.
Some German politicians questioned Ozil’s loyalty to Germany, suggesting he ought to be faraway from the nationwide squad forward of the World Cup in 2018.
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In his publish about retiring from worldwide soccer, Ozil steered his critics had been being racist and that the “image we took had no political intentions” and “was about me respecting the best workplace of my household’s nation”.
Ozil obtained married to Amine Gulse in Istanbul the next summer time, with Mr Erdogan current on the wedding ceremony.
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Erdogan at Ozil’s wedding ceremony in 2019
Mr Erdogan has presided over Turkey for greater than twenty years – as prime minister since 2003 and president since 2014.
His critics say he has turned Turkey into an autocracy and eroded individuals’s rights, having launched a brand new system in 2018 that abolished the workplace of the prime minister and concentrated most powers within the fingers of the president.
Ozil, who gained the World Cup with Germany in 2014, left Arsenal for Turkish facet Fenerbahce in 2021 earlier than transferring to Istanbul Basaksehir in 2022, the place he retired a yr later.
