Mesut Özil’s agent Erkut Sögüt has hit back at Germany’s Manuel Neuer, Thomas Müller and Toni Kroos after comments they made following the Arsenal star’s decision to quit international football, the Guardian reports.
Özil issued a statement in July announcing that he would no longer be playing for Germany, a statement that was more than 2000 words long.
His agent has since defended his client for being photographed with Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and hit out against the comments made from Ozil’s Germany teammates over his decision to quit.
Kroos told the newspaper Bild that there was a “lot of nonsense” in Özil’s statement that the midfielder had released, with Neuer and Muller also criticising the Arsenal star’s statement.
Sögüt spoke to the German magazine 11Freunde of the matter as he backed up Ozil’s decisions.
Neuer indirectly accused Mesut of not having worn the German jersey with pride. This is unacceptable. Müller did not understand the whole discussion. And Kroos, as a seasoned national team player, should explain what he means by ‘nonsense’.
There are only two explanations: they are either naive or scheming.
Sögüt went on to speak of Müller and Joachim Löw’s cmments that there was no racist behaviour in the Germany national side towards Ozil.
Löw defends himself against an accusation that has never actually been made: Mesut has not been racially abused from within the team but from the midst of German society. The German football association should have been more protective in this case.
Özil had faced a tonne of criticism after being pictured with Erdoğan last May and was subject to a host of racist social media comments during Germany’s poor World Cup campaign.
Mesut did not make any mistakes. That’s how it stays. It is just a matter of respect and courtesy to agree to meet the president of Turkey when he requests it. The two of them have met regularly over the past eight years. It has never been a problem before for the German public.
Sögüt went on to deny having talked his client into meeting with the Turkish President last May.
Why should I? Mesut is old enough, he knows what he is doing. And he has known the president far longer than he knows me.
