Homecoming
There was no mass turnout at Istanbul airport on his arrival. No flares, no raucous welcome, no street parties. But make no mistake about it – the signing of Mesut Ozil was one of the biggest transfers in Fenerbahce’s history.
Due to COVID restrictions on public gatherings, Fenerbahce fans were forced to the online realm to get behind their new man. Over 100,000 people tracked Ozil’s flight from London to Istanbul. Fenerbahce’s tweet announcing the Ozil signing received over 610,000 likes and 216,000 retweets.
The fans are excited. But they will demand results.
Sceptics will argue that the Fenerbahce administration has resorted to what major Turkish clubs have always done in the past when facing strain: throw money at a big name not exactly in the prime of their career to win over the masses. A short-term measure to hide long-term problems.
For years Turkish clubs have papered over the cracks. The major clubs in Turkey are technically owned by the fans, with a membershipbased setup and presidents elected
every few years. A kind of footballing democracy; in theory anyway. In reality, due to a lack of checks and balances, the system has created a monster.
Club presidents at the major clubs only care about short-term success as it is the only way to ensure re-election. As a result they focus on today. Couple that with a lack of accountability and you have a corrosive cocktail of out of control spending, irresponsible governance and no long-term strategy. As club presidents do not spend out of pocket they are happy to squander millions. Nobody will question them regarding where the money went once they are gone.
The major Turkish clubs have millions of fans. Few clubs in the world can compete with the support they command. And that is what makes the current situation of Turkish football so tragic. It does have a lot of potential. But it has been woefully managed.
Fenerbahce president Ali Koc has been working towards alleviating the crippling debt, which he has revealed stands at £460 million. To be fair, so are their main rivals, Besiktas, Galatasaray and Trabzonspor. In fact, most teams in the Super Lig are hurtling towards economic oblivion. The league is not in a healthy place.
The Yellow Canaries shifted towards savvy low-cost transfers and poaching young talents. And they have been turning a profit in the transfer market: last summer Vedat Muriqi was sold to Lazio for around £16m; the year before, Eljif Elmas joined Napoli for £14.5m.
But Turkish football can be an unforgiving place for the traditional powers. For the likes of Fenerbahce, Galatasaray and Besiktas, anything other than winning the league is an unmitigated failure.
Koc and his board have worked tirelessly to reduce debt, reform the academy and modernise the way the club operates. Ultimately, none of it will matter in the theatre of public opinion unless they win silverware. And after seven years without a trophy the fans are desperate to end the drought.
While there is no denying this isn’t the Ozil that won the 2014 World Cup with Germany, he is by no means at the end of his career just yet, aged 32 years old. And it is not exactly a final payday, as he would have earned more had he stayed at Arsenal. In fact, Fenerbahce revealed that Ozil will be earning €3m per-season on a three-year deal. There will be a €550,000 sign-on fee and he could earn an extra €1.75m in bonuses, but it still works out at an 80 per cent wage reduction. In other words he took a pay cut to play for the Istanbul giants.
He will still be the highest-paid player at Fenerbahce and with the current debt situation coupled with the weakness of the Lira to the Euro, it is by no means a cheap transfer for the club. But they will be able to justify it if they win the league and receive the financial rewards of qualifying for the Champions League group stage.
The narrative being pushed by Fenerbahce is simple: Ozil returning home. At first glance, this may seem bizarre considering he was born in Germany, but he is of Turkish heritage and professes that the Yellow Canaries were his first love. Ozil has made a big deal about his Turkish roots over the past few years. “I grew up as a Fenerbahce fan as a kid in Germany,” he said on Twitter recently. “Every German-Turkish person supports a Turkish team when they grow up in Germany. And mine was Fenerbahce.”
To which some Turkish fans ask: why didn’t he opt to represent the CrescentStars at international level? For them, Ozil is having his cake and eating it.
Being brought up as the child of immigrants often results in an identity that isn’t binary. Ozil was raised in a working-class neighbourhood where most of his neighbours were Turkish or of an immigrant background. He grew up speaking Turkish at home before learning German at school. Caught in between two cultures, Ozil was once the poster boy for social cohesion in Germany – picking up a Bambi award as a prime example of successful integration in German society.
After winning the World Cup in 2014, it was inconceivable that he would end up quitting the national team four years later, accusing the German FA of racism and using him as a scapegoat for the country’s poor display at the 2018 World Cup. The fall out centred on Ozil posing for photographs with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The events that unfolded saw the playmaker become more vocal about his Turkish roots. He felt he was German as long as he was successful and didn’t step out of line: “I am German when we win, an immigrant when we lose,” he said after quitting the German national team.
Perhaps a part of his decision to move to Turkey is to connect with his roots and to find a sense of belonging after being rejected by his country of birth. Many Fenerbahce fans genuinely believe Ozil turned down other clubs to join them because he wants to play for
his childhood team, so there will be a honeymoon period. But for how long?
There is no beating around the bush. Within the next six months, Ozil will either become a cult legend or the result of Fenerbahce fans going into complete meltdown. The transfer has brought with it an air of optimism. At the midway point of the season, the team was in second place, just two points off Besiktas with Galatasaray breathing down their necks in third – three points behind. This is seen as the best chance Fenerbahce have to win the league in years. Galatasaray and Besiktas are in a worse financial state than they are and reigning champions Istanbul Basaksehir are struggling for form in the bottom half.
The ball is in Ozil’s court. He has had a tumultuous few years, from becoming Arsenal’s highest-paid player in January 2018 to being ostracised from the squad in the final few months of his time at the club. Neither Unai Emery nor Mikel Arteta managed to get the best out of him. As well as falling out with the DFB, his relationship with the Arsenal board soured after they distanced themselves from comments he made in support of Uyghur Muslims in China. His refusal to take a pay-cut amidst the coronavirus pandemic only worsened the relationship.
The situation became irretrievable after Arteta decided not to register Ozil for their Premier League and Europa League squads. Whatever the real reason for that decision, the playmaker arrived in Turkey having not played a competitive game of football since March. Even when he was playing, he was not in the best of form, with three assists and just one goal last season.
His attitude has regularly been brought into question, often missing games with a recurring back injury.
His laid-back body language is often misinterpreted as a sign that he isn’t interested. He has been accused of spending more time playing Fortnite than football.
The Super Lig is a physical league. The traditional Turkish fan expects players to show qualities like passion, hard work, getting stuck in and giving their all for the badge. This isn’t exactly Ozil. His style and Fenerbahce’s is not exactly a perfect match. But as long as he delivers the goods it won’t cause much of an issue.
Fenerbahce fans expect Ozil to step up, lead by example and bring back the glory years. At his best, he would undoubtedly be the best player in the league. But he will have a giant target on his head. Rival teams are going to do everything to shut him down, to prevent him playing. Rival fans will pounce on his every mistake.
And in Turkey there is no escape. There are several football only newspapers. Football is discussed for hours in chat show formats for most of the week on television. The country is absolutely crazy about the sport.
For the time being, Ozil will be shielded from the madness by COVID restrictions. But if the title race is tight towards the end of the season the atmosphere is going to be suffocating. Pressure can make diamonds but can also crush rocks to dust. It is make or break for Fenerbahce.
“I am German when we win, an immigrant when we lose” Ozil after quitting the German national team in 2018