German footballer Mesut Ozil quits national team, citing racism

  Germany midfielder Mesut Ozil has effectively closed the door on

 international football, citing criticism from the media and the German

 

football federation president that struck him as racist.

In a statement posted on Twitter, Ozil, a German of Turkish descent, said that he "will no longer be playing for Germany... whilst I have this feeling of racism and disrespect."

Ozil says he received criticism from German media after meeting Turkish President Racep Tayyip Erdogan in May in London, alongside his Germany teammate, Manchester City's Ilkay Gundogan, who is also of Turkish descent, and Turkey's Cenk Tosun, who plays for Premier League club Everton.

Erdogan was reelected President last month following a high-stakes election campaign. The victory came after a two-year state of emergency that purged tens of thousands of his political opponents.

He has been widely denounced by human rights groups and governments, including Germany's, for his handling of dissent in Turkey.

"It's regrettable that Mesut Özil felt that he had not been sufficiently protected as a target of racist slogans against his person, as was the case with Jerome Boateng," said the German Football Federation, referring to Bayern Munich's German international.

"But it was important that Mesut Özil, like Ilkay Gündogan before him, gives answers to this photo, regardless of the tournament's sporting outcome in Russia. In the DFB, we win and lose together, all as a team."

Ozil said that the meeting with the Turkish president was apolitical, that they had talked about football, and that he would be "disrespecting his ancestors' roots" if he had refused to meet Erdogan while he was in London. Erdogan reportedly used the images of him meeting the footballers in his reelection campaign.

At the time, DFB president Reinhard Grindel criticized the photo op, saying that the sport and his national association "defend values which are not sufficiently respected by Mr Erdogan," according to the DFB website.

"That's why it's not good that our international players let themselves be manipulated for his electoral campaign. In doing that, our players have certainly not helped the DFB's work on integration."