Mesut Özil said goodbye to the pitch a few months ago. The German footballer of Turkish descent leaves football and thus distances himself from the media focus that accompanied him during his campaigns at Real Madrid and Arsenal. However, the athlete has once again been the protagonist for a photograph, in which it is seen that he has an extreme right-wing tattoo on his chest.
Alper Aksaç, Özil’s personal trainer, has shared the image on his social networks to account for the result of these last weeks: “We have reached this point after two weeks of hard Christmas work, but I think we have not finished it”.
“If you think we are going to wear shirts next summer, you would be wrong,” Aksaç stressed, without realizing that the former soccer player’s tattoo would be the subject of strong criticism on social networks for being a symbol for the extreme right.
Specifically, it is a small wolf on the left pectoral, a symbol of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), the Turkish far-right formation that has had an important weight in the executive in recent years, although it defends the outlawing of the main Kurdish formation.
The wolf that the German has tattooed on his chest is usually also accompanied by three crescents, the image of the MHP party. Also, it is a symbol used on the flag of the Ottoman Empire.
That tattoo “is against the Kurds and other minorities,” some users reproached him. Others claimed that it only distilled “racism”.
The political sympathies of Özil, a German of Turkish descent, have always created much controversy. The footballer has been close to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey since August 2014. On several occasions, he has expressed his respect for the country’s highest authority and has even attended his wedding as a witness.
