Mesut Ozil’s Exit From German Soccer Team Stokes Debate on Integration

BERLIN — Germany awoke to a national debate on integration, racism and sports Monday, as the news hit that one of its most celebrated soccer players was quitting the national team, saying he was the victim of bigotry and hypocrisy.

Mesut Ozil, a star of Germany’s world champion 2014 team, announced his resignation in a series of lengthy social media posts, after enduring weeks of criticism for posing for a picture with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, and for his performance in Germany’s shocking early exit from this year’s World Cup.

“I’m a German when we win, but I am an immigrant when we lose,” wrote Ozil, who was born in Germany to parents who had immigrated from Turkey.

Ozil, 29, has been a symbol of modern German soccer and, by extension, a modern, diverse Germany — an attacking midfielder who has been voted player of the year five times by German fans and has played on the national team for nearly a decade. His sudden departure from the national team raised long-simmering questions about ethnic identity in Germany, and the intersection of sports and politics.

“It is cause for alarm when a great German footballer like Mesut Ozil no longer feels wanted in his country because of racism and feels unrepresented by the DFB,” the federal justice minister, Katarina Barley, wrote on Twitter shortly after the decision was published Sunday, referring to the German acronym of the German Football Association.

Sports journalist Martin Schneider wrote in the influential Süddeutsche Zeitung daily that, more than the squad’s early exit from the tournament, “the end of Mesut Ozil in the German national team is the real defeat of the summer.”

In May, Ozil and Ilkay Gundogan, another teammate with Turkish roots, posed with Erdogan, the autocratic ruler of Turkey who was campaigning for re-election. That prompted some to question whether Ozil should be on the national team, and the picture was roundly criticized as partisan, in a country where major sports figures are expected to act like apolitical role models.

Then in June, Germany, the defending champion, endured the worst performance in its modern World Cup history — sent home from the tournament in Russia before 16 other teams advanced to the knockout round of play. The denunciation of Ozil by some fans, commentators and soccer officials escalated.

The team’s general manager, Oliver Bierhoff, appeared to question Ozil’s on-the-pitch performance, suggesting that he should have been left off the team. Reinhard Grindel, the head of the soccer association, publicly demanded that Ozil explain the Erdogan picture; Grindel, in turn, was accused of failing to protect Ozil from xenophobic attacks.

In his resignation statement Sunday, Ozil wrote that his meeting with Erdogan was not political, but “was about me respecting the highest office” of Turkey.

A large part of his statement focused on his disagreement with Grindel, a former member of parliament from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right party. Ozil referred to comments Grindel had made that dismissed multiculturalism in Germany as a lie.

Ulrike Demmer, a spokeswoman for Merkel, praised Ozil and said that soccer played a big role in integrating immigrants into Germany. She said the chancellor respected Ozil’s decision to quit, and that others should likewise respect it.

But the deep divide between Ozil and much of Germany’s football establishment was illustrated Monday by Uli Hoeness, president of the FC Bayern Munich team, who accused the player of “hiding his poor performance behind this picture” with Erdogan.

France’s multicultural national team did not prompt the same kind of debates about race and identity this year. It helped, of course, that the squad won the tournament, bringing home the World Cup 20 years after the country’s first victory in 1998.

But comments from abroad did elicit reactions — most notably an exchange between comedian Trevor Noah, host of “The Daily Show,” and Gérard Araud, the French ambassador in Washington.

Noah, a South Africa native who had proudly said after the victory that “Africa won the World Cup,” was quickly rebuked by Araud, who wrote on Twitter and even in a formal letter that the “Daily Show” host had misunderstood France’s cultural model.

Turkish officials were quick to celebrate Ozil’s decision to leave the German team. Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul wrote on Twitter that Ozil had “kicked his best goal against the virus of fascism, by leaving German national team.”

A former president of the German soccer association, Theo Zwanziger, called the resignation “a major setback for integration efforts beyond football in our country,” and said that the episode risked sending a message that people of immigrant backgrounds were “second-class Germans.”

Ozil’s statement about the infamous picture reached a big audience — he has 23 million Twitter followers, more than any of his former teammates, and heavy news coverage drew many other people to his broadside. Ozil, who is under contract with Arsenal Football Club in Britain until 2021, wrote his message in English, ensuring a wide readership outside Germany.

Intentional or not, Ozil’s words on social media echoed those of another German who was forced to deal with a dual identity.

In 1922, Albert Einstein said in a speech in Paris: “If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew."