Istanbul/London: Istanbul-based football club Fenerbahce said it has agreed with Arsenal FC to sign up German soccer World Cup winner Mesut Ozil.
Fenerbahce said it also has agreed with the player “in principle” for his transfer, a filing with the Istanbul stock exchange on Sunday said.
Since March, the attacking midfielder hasn’t been selected to play for Arsenal, where the German earned about £350,000, or $479,000, a week.
Ozil, who moved to Arsenal from Real Madrid in 2013 for a then club record fee of £42.5 million, scored 44 goals in 254 matches, the club’s website shows.
His contract was due to end after the current season.
Arsenal had distanced itself from comments Ozil made on Instagram in December 2019, criticizing China’s treatment of Uighurs in Xinjiang, the Guardian reported at the time.
The club sought to limit any damage caused to its business in China, where its commercial interests include a chain of restaurants, the newspaper had reported.
Ozil, who played 92 matches for Germany, was a member of the country’s 2014 world cup champion team.
Born in Gelsenkirchen in Germany with Turkish roots, Ozil got caught in the eye of a storm when he met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in May 2018, in a boost to the latter’s election campaign.
Ozil denied the charges and said he met Erdogan as a sign of respect. Soon, he quit international football, complaining of racist treatment from the German federation, fans and media.
In 2019, Ozil married a former Turkish beauty queen in Istanbul, with Erdogan in attendance. He’s built a villa in Istanbul’s Uskudar district, where Erdogan also has a home, the Demiroren News Agency said.
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