German-Turkish footballers quell controversy over Erdogan photo row

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Two German international footballers of Turkish descent on Saturday met with the German president and German Football Association (DFB) officials following controversy after they were pictured with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Players Mesut Özil and Ilkay Gündoğan posed for a photo with President Erdogan on May 13 during his visit to London in the United Kingdom where he met with Prime Minister Theresa May.

Head of the DFB Reinhard Grindel said in a previous statement that the players had been “manipulated” for Erdogan’s elections campaign in the upcoming snap polls to be held in Turkey on June 24.

“Football and the DFB defend values which are not fully taken into account by Mr. Erdogan,” Grindel wrote in a tweet. “That’s why it’s not good that international players allow themselves to be manipulated for his electoral campaign.”

“In doing that, our players have certainly not helped the DFB’s work on integration,” he added.

Özil, who plays for Arsenal in the English Premier League, and Gündoğan for recently crowned champions Manchester City, were joined by another Premier League player, Everton’s Cenk Tosun, himself a Turkish international.

According to German online publication Welt, another player, Emre Can of Liverpool, declined an invitation to attend the PR event with Erdogan.

“The two players contacted us and the DFB and wanted to clear this issue up,” German football team coach Joachim Loew told reporters on Saturday.

“The German president suggested they meet with him as well. There was a discussion. Now, we can start talking about other things,” he added.

Relations between Berlin and Ankara remain strained due to German refuge to dissident Turks and Kurds as well as accusations of “Nazism and support for terrorists” leveled against Germany by Erdogan.

“It was important to both of them to clear up the misunderstandings,” German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a Facebook post which included a photo of him and the two footballers.

DFB head Grindel, meanwhile, said both players had assured the German Football Association “that they had not wanted to send any political signal with that action [photo with Erdogan].”

“They also stated that they stand for our values on and off the pitch and they identify with them,” he added.