Mesut Ozil has spoken out against the actions of China against Uighur Muslims, and Arsenal have immediately distanced themselves from this.
China have responded suggesting that Ozil has been deceived by fake news following his comments where he referred to the Uighur Muslims as “warriors who resist persecution” when he posted about it on instagram (see bottom of the post) where he was far from complimentary about China and the lack of response from fellow Muslims.
But when American sports clubs find themselves in this situation their response is more likely to be, “when our sports clubs travel, they come with our values – which includes freedom of speech.”
Arsenal should be taking this view too as Tony Attwood so correctly points out in the video below…
As you may have noticed in the video about Ozil I got the name of the Uighurs wrong. My apologies – as you have probably realised the videos are simply me talking straight to the camera without notes, and without rehearsal, and sadly errors do happen. My apologies to everyone.
Given that the Kroenke’s own so many sports teams which are USA based you might expect the same policy to be applied to Arsenal’s men’s and women’s teams therefore all his teams including Arsenal F.C. and Arsenal W.F.C should always travel with their values intact and should not be comprised by the policies of the country they are visiting. Does this now mean that Arsenal will not be considered to play lucrative pre-season games in China because of Mesut Ozil? As Tony says it’s a slippery slope to be going down.
If you don’t know it is pretty amazing just how many teams Stan Kroenke owns including the following: the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams, the NBA’s Denver Nuggets, the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche, MLS’s Colorado Rapids, the NLL’s Colorado Mammoth) National Lacrosse League), an esport team the Los Angeles Gladiators as well as both Arsenal F.C. and Arsenal W.F.C.
Kroenke owns 8 teams with clubs in 3 of the biggest USA sports the only one he is missing is a team in Major League Baseball. Quite the portfolio of sports franchises.
You can see Ozil’s post below: