The former player of Werder Bremen, Real Madrid and Arsenal has not had an easy past few years.
In July he had committed to Basaksehir for a season, after a delicate stage at Fenerbahçe, one of the greats in Turkey.
He had arrived in Istanbul at the beginning of 2021 and the number 10 had been excluded from the Fenerbahçe first team in March 2022 after coming into conflict with those responsible for the team.
Özil had already finished his previous spell at Arsenal with great problems.
The player, who began his professional career in the Bundesliga with Schalke 04, had been heavily criticized in Germany after posing for a photograph with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in May 2018, shortly before the World Cup in Russia. 2018. Also in the photo was another German international, Ilkay Gündogan, also of Turkish origin.
Özil then denounced being the victim of attacks that he considered “racist” and announced his withdrawal from the German team after that 2018 World Cup, in which Germany was eliminated in the group stage.
For a long time, Özil, born in Gelsenkirchen and of Turkish family originswas considered an example of integration through sport, but what happened in 2018 marked a before and after for a player who wore the Germany shirt 92 times, for which he signed 23 goals.
He went so far as to affirm that he felt that the president of the German Football Federation considered him German when the team won, but “an immigrant when we lose”.
The case of Mesut Özil sparked a huge debate about racism in Germany, where the largest Turkish community lives outside their country.
Several Turkish ministers applauded Özil’s decision to leave his team and one of them went so far as to say that he had “scored a goal against the virus of fascism”.
Özil married in 2019 in Istanbul with Amine Gülse, who had been Miss Turkey. President Erdogan witnessed their wedding.