(Istanbul) The former German international, 2014 world champion, Mesut Özil, player of the Turkish club Basaksehir, announced Wednesday his retirement at the age of 34.
The midfielder, who had slammed the door of the German selection after the 2018 World Cup amid accusations of racism, announced that he was “immediately withdrawing from professional football” in a message posted on Twitter.
“Over the past few months and weeks, after suffering from several injuries, it has become increasingly clear that it is time for me to leave this great world of football,” explained Mesut Özil.
The former Werder Bremen, Real Madrid and Arsenal player has had a difficult last few years at club level.
He signed up last July with Basaksehir for one season, after a tricky stint at Fenerbahçe.
Arrived in Istanbul at the beginning of 2021, the N.10 had been excluded in March 2022 from the Fenerbahçe first team after coming into conflict with its management.
Özil had already ended up in the closet at Arsenal, his previous club.
The player, who started his professional career in the Bundesliga with Schalke 04, had been strongly criticized in Germany after posing with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in May 2018, shortly before the World Cup in Russia.
Denouncing “racist” attacks, he announced his international retirement after the 2018 World Cup.
Özil, a long-time model of integration through sport, had come under vehement and sometimes dubious criticism in the German media after the historic and humiliating elimination of Germany, the reigning world champion, from the group stage.
The player with 23 goals in 92 caps with the Mannschaft said he felt considered by the president of the German football federation as German “when we win”, but as “an immigrant when we lose”.
The charge of Mesut Özil, born in the Ruhr, Germany, had provoked a wide debate on racism in Germany, where the largest Turkish community in the world lives.
Several Turkish ministers then welcomed the decision of the ex-international, one of them welcoming “a goal against the virus of fascism”.
Özil got married in 2019 in Istanbul to a former Miss Turkey, Amine Gülse. Her wedding witness was President Erdogan.