Mesut Ozil’s announcement that he was resigning from playing for Germany has inevitably sparked plenty of debate in both sporting and political circles.
Ozil’s statement on Sunday was a major bombshell and the fall-out from the news could rumble on for months.
The Arsenal star was widely criticised in the run-up to this summer’s World Cup after he posed for photographs alongside the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in London.
His critics said the row contributed to his team’s early exit from the tournament, but German foreign minister Heiko Maas dimissed that idea emphatically on Monday.