Soccer

Kroos rejects Ozil racism claims again

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Mesut Ozil and Toni Kroos
  • Post published:September 6, 2018

Toni Kroos has again rejected Mesut Ozil’s accusations of racism against the German Football Federation (DFB), insisting the national team has proven over many years to be a ‘role model for all society’.

Ozil – who made his claims in a lengthy three-part letter – felt he had been scapegoated for Germany’s poor World Cup showing as a result of his May meeting with Turkey’s controversial president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

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The midfielder, who has Turkish heritage, has received precious little support from his former team-mates in the Germany setup, and Kroos defended the DFB on Wednesday after reiterating the comments he made in August, when he called Ozil’s claims ‘nonsense’.

‘I think that it [the situation surrounding Ozil’s claims] doesn’t say anything about German football,’ Kroos told reporters at a news conference.

‘Respectively, for years we have been proving the opposite of what has been said. This was an individual case, a special one to which I expressed my opinion about a few weeks ago.

‘Particularly the racism charges against the DFB and the president, I can only refuse in my opinion.

‘Everything that happened around it, in the stadiums or in other statements, I did not comment on, but only the accusations against the DFB and the president, which is part of the DFB.

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‘And this is absolutely to be rejected. In this form and harshness, it was not appropriate.

‘I think we have proved the contrary for years, and we as a national team have been a role model for all society on how it [integration] can work.

‘Players of every culture were welcome and [we] built together a team. That’s all on this topic.’

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Germany face France in their Nations League opener on Thursday, their first match since the 2-0 defeat to South Korea in Kazan which saw them dumped out of the World Cup in the group stage.