Cem Özdemir: "The integration through sport is not automatic"

Exclusively for subscribers [19659008] WORLD: Özil would probably answer: This shows how much the debate is anti-Turkish, because the excitement about Matthew's photo with Putin was not as great as that of images of Özil and Ilkay Gündogan with Erdogan

Özdemir: The appearance of Matthew is still strongly criticized. However, it must be said that in Ozil's criticism more and more tones have mixed that have nothing to do with the actual opportunity. They come from people who are not interested in sports that are not related to integration and coexistence, but that have a fundamental problem with the composition of the national team. I am talking about the name of the AfD and people who are trying to suck the honey out of this crisis. This is also true for Erdogan. If anyone benefits from this whole story, it is the nationalists and the radicals in Germany and Turkey. All I can say, is: a great policy of the DFB

WORLD: Where Erdogan takes advantage of Özil's resignation from the national team?

Özdemir: Looking at the headlines of the Turkish press, then one realizes that the AKP hopes that young German Turks and possibly other athletes with migrating roots, like the Germans, will not opt ​​for our German national team in the future. I am really sorry and very hurt. It is well known that I have been campaigning for many years for young migrants to consider Germany as their homeland and, like others of their age, dream of one day being able to compete for our national team. The president of the DFB has done a disservice by his embarrbading game.

WORLD: At first, Reinhard Grindel did not just hope that the debate would calm down? So, he did not practice the fairly moderate criticism of Erdogan's photos and retained otherwise?

Özdemir: The DFB should have intervened from the start, immediately after the photos of the two players with Erdogan, and settle the matter before the World Cup starts. He should have asked him to clarify Özil internally. Instead, he allowed in advance that the public dispute was carried in the team, and in retrospect then tried to use that mood and attributed failure in some measure only Mesut Özil. It's irresponsible – not to say indecent. You do not have to be a skilled football expert to see that failure had many reasons. This concerns the composition of the team, the inner attitude, the preparation, the tactics.

WORLD: But the photos criticize you too.

Özdemir: Sure, and I'm holding on to that. The photos are fake, and they should not have existed. But since they exist, you have to face the crisis and end it rather than let it continue. Thus, the embarrbading crisis management of the DFB also gave way to attacks from the right

WORLD: What do you expect from Reinhard Grindel?

Özdemir: M. Grindel has, in my opinion, by his words so incompetent that I do not see how the new start of the national team should work with him at the head of the DFB. Mr. Grindel is no longer their DFB president for many in this country.

WORLD: Resignation

Özdemir: M. Grindel should critically question if he is still the right man for this post.

WORLD: We like to talk about sports as the path to integration. Is it an illusion?

Özdemir: I am convinced that sport can contribute a lot to integration. But there is of course no automatism in this, especially as in each profession, it applies as well to yours as to mine, one can find very different characters. Athletes and footballers are not better people in themselves.

WORLD: Is this integrated sport discourse not at least professional? Why should professional footballers include more construction professionals on a construction site or office workers?

Özdemir: There is a community experience in the club and the national team, as in any team sport. And it is also important that the sport is perceived not only by the participants, but also from the outside, by fans and bystanders. This can certainly connect in a special way – unless the perpetrators make major mistakes like in this case, ranging from Özil up to the top of the DFB.

WORLD: In the small villages play the few young people with Turkish roots in the village team with. But in the German cities there are hundreds of Turkish football clubs

Özdemir: Unfortunately, the DFB has given a new impetus to this development. I'm afraid this trend is no longer likely to increase now. On the one hand, tell these young people that it is your country, get involved here, and on the other hand blame a single player for his impossible extrajudicial action for a flagrant defeat, that night certainly to the idea of ​​integration. Here in Germany, one should be judged on what one can do and what one does, not by one's mother tongue or religion

WORLD: Now the politics apart, from football fan to football fan: Do not you agree? that Özil played badly at this World Cup?

Özdemir: Well, with 110 ball contacts and good duels, Özil was one of the best German players against South Korea. But I do not want to be one of the 82 million national coaches now and enter this debate. And one thing is undisputed: this is certainly not the case with Mesut Özil alone, and his resignation hurts him as well on the sporting level.