Mesut Ozil, a former footballer for Arsenal and Real Madrid, has made a transition into politics by joining Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party.
At the age of 36, Ozil, who is of Turkish descent, was appointed to the ruling AK Party’s Central Decision and Management Board during a party congress on Sunday.
Ozil faced criticism during his career for his association with Erdogan.
He retired from the German national team in 2018 after a photograph of him meeting the Turkish president in London sparked controversy.
Reinhard Grindel, the former head of Germany’s soccer federation, accused the players of allowing themselves to be “exploited” by Erdogan for political purposes.
Some German politicians questioned Ozil’s loyalty to Germany, suggesting he should be removed from the national squad ahead of the World Cup in 2018.
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Ozil claimed that his critics were being racist and that the picture of him meeting Erdogan had no political motives, but was a sign of respect for the highest office of his family’s country.
The following summer, Ozil married Amine Gulse in Istanbul, where Mr Erdogan reportedly served as best man.
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Erdogan at Ozil’s wedding in 2019
Erdogan has been in power in Turkey for more than two decades – serving as prime minister from 2003 to 2014 and president since then.
Critics argue that he has transformed Turkey into an autocratic regime and undermined people’s rights by introducing a system in 2018 that abolished the position of prime minister and centralized most powers in the hands of the president.
Ozil, who won the World Cup with Germany in 2014, transferred from Arsenal to Fenerbahce in Turkey in 2021 and then moved to Istanbul Basaksehir in 2022, where he retired just a year later.
