Mesut Ozil started a food project and increased his charity funding after declining Arsenal‘s pay cut during lockdown, i can reveal.
Ozil has been paying for meals, focusing on healthy food, to be supplied to refugee and homeless centres, women’s groups and schools in north London since April.
The food is provided three days per week and the German midfielder, who has been exiled from the club, has promised to continue the support while he remains an Arsenal player. His contract is due to expire next summer.
Some of the organisations Ozil is supporting include the Colindale Foodbank, Unitas Barnet Youth Zone, Barnet Refugee Service, Homeless Action Barnet and Burnt Oak Women’s Group.
In light of his pay-cut decision, Ozil, 32, also increased his charity work with the Big Shoe project, a German charity which funds and arranges vital surgeries for children across the world. Ozilhad already convinced some of football’s biggest stars to contribute, including France and Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba and Germany and Chelsea defender Antonio Rüdiger.
Ozil’s decision to reject Arsenal’s suggestion of a 12.5 per cent pay cut back in April was met with a fierce backlash from the general public on social media. He was one of three players to reject the offer.
The midfielder, who earns £350,000 per week, sought assurances that the pay cut, lasting for 12 months, would not merely be spent on funding new players and that staff would not lose their jobs during such uncertain times.
Barely any other Premier League clubs forced their players to take pay cuts. Since then, Arsenal made 55 staff redundant, including their dinosaur mascot Gunnersaurus, real name Jerry Quy. They also spent almost £70m on new players and signed Brazilian winger Willian on six-figure weekly wages from Chelsea.
Among the new signings were £23m centre-half Gabriel from Lille and deadline-day arrival Thomas Partey from Atletico Madrid for £45m.
Rather than agree a pay cut, Ozil used the money to increase his charitable contributions, already significantly greater than many players. Last year alone, the player and his wife Amine marked their wedding by paying for crucial medical operations for 1,000 children.
Ozil’s refusal to take a pandemic pay cut is considered to be one of the reasons he has been exiled from manager Mikel Arteta’s squad this season.
He had initially experienced a revival at Arsenal under Arteta, playing every single league match before coronavirus disrupted last season, but has not featured at all this campaign.
A week ago, the World Cup winner was left out of Arsenal’s 25-man Premier League squad altogether, filed after the closure of the transfer window, meaning he can only play for their under-23 side.
Earlier this month, Ozil had already been omitted from Arsenal’s Europa League squad for the season.
It is also thought that the German’s condemnation of the persecution of Uighur Muslims in China is a major contributing factor to the club pushing him aside. Arsenal distanced themselves from Ozil’s social media posts on the subject.
The club have huge commercial interests in China, seen as a major growth area for the Premier League.
Following Ozil’s comments, an Arsenal match was pulled from Chinese television and the player was removed from the country’s version of the Pro Evolution Soccer video game.
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