Excerpt:
Mesut Özil said on Sunday he will no longer play international football for Germany following the fallout from his meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The 29-year-old issued three lengthy and hard-hitting statements via Twitter, in which he singled out German Football Association (DFB) President Reinhard Grindel. Özil said he would “no longer stand for being a scapegoat for [Grindel’s] incompetence and inability to do his job properly.
“In the eyes of Grindel and his supporters, I am German when we win, but I am an immigrant when we lose,” he added.
“I feel unwanted and think that what I have achieved since my international debut in 2009 has been forgotten.
“Despite paying taxes in Germany, donating facilities to German schools and winning the World Cup with Germany in 2014, I am still not accepted into society. I am treated as being ‘different’.”