The president of Germany’s FA, Reinhard Grindel, doesn’t believe the Mesut Ozil ‘affair’ will cost the country when it comes to bidding for the 2024 European championships.
‘Affair’ sounds so much nicer than ‘racism’, wouldn’t you agree?
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“Everyone in the DFB and in UEFA knows me very well. I have very deep trust that they can put this into perspective, so I think there will be no influence on the bidding process,” Grindel said.
“In the end, it has nothing to do with whether a player of ours has a migration background or not.
“If a German player would, in an election campaign, make a photo with, let’s say, a far right-wing politician in Germany, we would have the same debate and we in the DFB would react in the same way.
“We stand at the DFB for values: respect, tolerance, fair play, freedom of speech and freedom of press. This picture with Erdogan upset our fans, because their President Erdogan doesn’t stand for those values.”
Grindel, like the rest of Germany, made no comment about Lothar Mattheus posing for a photograph with Vladimir Putin. If Erdogan doesn’t stand for the same values as the DfB, does Putin?
Just so we're clear, Putin OK, but Erdogan not? Asking for a bug-eyed friend… pic.twitter.com/sn9qvTAIBW
— Daily Cannon (@DailyCannon) July 7, 2018
Although it seems like every white, single nationality German from Bayern Munich has attacked Ozil, Grindel actually admitted that he should have done more to protect the Arsenal midfielder from the effects of racism when he was with the squad.
Grindel was the main target of Ozil’s lengthy retirement statement, named specifically.
Since Ozil announced he would not play for Germany under the current setup, he has been the subjected of intense scrutiny and criticism in his home country as the German national team demonstrates just how easy it is for most people to mix up the terms ‘racial abuse’ and racism’.
Ozil never once said he was subjected to racial abuse from any members of the German team yet that’s all they seem focused on discussing
Until they can wrap their heads around the fact that a person can feel discriminated against because of their race without them noticing, it’s hard to imagine how progress and change can be made.