Former Arsenal and Madrid star Ozil trying his hand at politics

Former Real Madrid and Arsenal star Mesut Özil, among other teams, and 2014 World Cup winner with Germany, was elected Sunday as a member of the Executive Committee of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an Islamist.
The 37-year-old former Turkish-German footballer Özil thus joins the president's 'A-team' after being elected today at the 8th Congress of the AKP, the party that has ruled Turkey since 2002.
Founded by Erdogan in 2001 as a moderate Islamist, democratic and conservative party, the AKP has taken an increasingly authoritarian drift in recent years.
After claiming that some 60,000 co-religionists participated in the Congress, the head of state and government on Sunday presented his long tenure as successful.
Özil, considered one of the best midfielders of his generation, played for Real Madrid between 2010 and 2013. As a member of the German national team he made 92 international appearances, scoring 23 goals and directly contributing to Germany's 2014 FIFA World Cup victory.
Özil's relations with the German public deteriorated in 2018 after he had a meeting with Erdogan and handed him an Arsenal shirt. Amid a harsh barrage of criticism for that meeting, the World Cup winner ended up resigning from the German national team.
The midfielder, with over 600 appearances in professional football, spent much of his career at Arsenal, Schalke 04, Werder Bremen and Real Madrid. It was in 2020 that he approached Turkish soccer and played for Fenerbahce and Basaksehir, before announcing his farewell to the game in March 2023