Bayern Munich president suggested the Ozil was using the controversy as an excuse for poor performances.
Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness has ripped into Mesut Ozil after the player announced his retirement from the German national team. Ozil said on Sunday he would no longer play for the national team because he faced "racism and disrespect" because of his Turkish roots.
However, the Bayern president Hoeness suggested the Arsenal star was using the Erdogan controversy as an excuse for poor performances.
Speaking to SportBild in Philadelphia before Bayern’s pre-season friendly with Juventus, Hoeness said: ‘Ozil has been playing s*** for years. He won his last tackle before the 2014 World Cup."
"All he is doing on the field is playing cross passes. Now he hides himself and his crap performance behind this photo," he added.
WHAT OZIL SAID
Ozil, 29, was a key member of Germany's World Cup-winning side in 2014 and has been voted by fans as the team's player of the year five times since 2011.
But the creative midfielder faced a barrage of criticism at home for having his photograph taken with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in May.
Ozil, who plays for English club Arsenal, said German Football Association (DFB) President Reinhard Grindel had blamed him for Germany's poor performance.
"In the eyes of Grindel and his supporters I am German when we win, but I am an immigrant when we lose," Ozil wrote in a lengthy statement in English posted on his Twitter account.
He added he did not feel accepted in German society despite paying taxes there, making donations to German schools and being part of the team that won the World Cup.
"It is with a heavy heart and after much consideration that because of recent events, I will no longer be playing for Germany at international level whilst I have this feeling of racism and disrespect," he said.
"I used to wear the German shirt with such pride and excitement, but now I don't," he said. "I feel unwanted and think that what I have achieved since my international debut in 2009 has been forgotten."
Ozil questioned whether there were criteria for being German that he did not meet and asked why he should be referred to as German-Turkish when fellow German soccer players Lukas Podolski and Miroslav Klose were not referred to as German-Polish.
"Is it because it is Turkey? Is it because I'm a Muslim? I think here lays an important issue," he said.
MIXED REACTIONS
Ozil's decision and accusations have invited mixed reactions.
Germany's Social Democrat Justice Minister Katarina Barley said on Twitter: "It's alarming if a great German football player like Mesut Ozil no longer feels wanted in his country and doesn't feel represented by the DFB due to racism."
Veteran Greens lawmaker Cem Ozdemir, who has Turkish roots, said Ozil's photo was wrong and his explanation unconvincing but added: "The way the DFB leadership acted is at least as disastrous - Grindel is hacking our history of integration to pieces. Do they want young German-Turks to start playing for Erdogan soon? The DFB needs a fresh start."
But others criticised Ozil, with Thomas Bareiss, a senior member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, saying Ozil's accusations of racism and a lack of respect were "out of place".Mass-selling newspaper Bild said: "Ozil is revelling in the victim role that has nothing to do with reality."
Relations between Germany and Turkey have soured amid a crackdown by Erdogan's government on suspected supporters of a failed military coup in July, 2016. Germany is home to some 3 million people with Turkish roots.
(With Reuters Inputs)
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