Signboard replaced outside hometown of Mesut Ozil in Turkey, removing photo of him in a German jersey in July 2018. Gurkay GüNdogan/Press Association. All rights reserved.
The recent case of Mesut Özil has shown a severe rupture in relations between German-Turks and German natives, which has been a long time coming, but went unrecognized while the football national team put it in the shade. However, it was precisely because of the earlier sporting success of the German squad that the Özil case escalated into a fierce conflict. Three crucial ingredients played a role in this escalation: the failure of political messaging on national football-team diversity, some setbacks in Germany-Turkey relations, and the rise of the populist radical right in both Turkey and Germany.
