Germany coach Joachim Low has insisted he attempted to meet with Mesut Ozil at Arsenal’s training ground on Monday but accepts the player does not want to talk after quitting the national team in July citing racism within the German FA.
Low and general manager Oliver Bierhoff visited Arsenal’s London Colney training complex in the hope of talking to Ozil, with whom they’ve had no contact since his withdrawal from the national team, and said the club was informed of his visit in advance.
“Mesut was not there, and thus we must accept it that he currently does not want to talk to us,” Low told reporters at a UEFA meeting in Nyon on Thursday. “I don’t know the reasons.”
A source close to the club told FC that Ozil was not at the training ground that day.
German tabloid Bild reported that Low and Bierhoff were not allowed to attend training “at the behest of Arsenal coach Umai Emery,” who later rejected the report when he told reporters: “It’s not true.”
Ozil withdrew from the Germany team after the World Cup and its buildup were overshadowed by a photograph that he and Manchester City’s Ilkay Gundogan — another Germany player with Turkish heritage — had taken with the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in May.
In August, Low said that he was only informed of the decision by Ozil’s agent and not the player himself.
On Thursday, he said: “I would have wished that a player with whom I worked with for such a long period would call me, even if it’s only for a minute.
“Especially given it’s Mesut, that’s weird. And, sure, I am disappointed after working together for such a long time.”
