Mesut Ozil’s agent, Dr. Erkut Sogut, has revealed that the former Arsenal midfielder will transition to eSports following his retirement. Ozil, a World Cup winner with Germany in 2014, has had a terrible time of it in recent years.
Cast aside by Mikel Arteta at the Emirates Stadium, the midfielder moved to Fenerbahce in 2021 after his contract at Arsenal was terminated. While the 33-year-old arrived in Istanbul to huge fanfare, the former Real Madrid star was excluded from the first-team squad in March, alongside former Watford loanee Ozan Tufan.
The former Real Madrid playmaker has two years left on his contract, but he is already planning his post-football future. Since joining the Turkish giants, Ozil has only made 36 appearances for them, scoring eight goals and assisting nine times. Despite the fact that his contract has two more years left on it, manager Jorge Jesus intimated earlier this month that his banishment would most certainly remain.
A frequent gamer, Erkut Sogul confirmed his client would be looking into becoming an eSports athlete at the end of his career during an interview with The Telegraph.
“He will go more into eSports, play himself and maybe become an eSports athlete,” he said.
‘He’s really good, to be honest, at Fortnite and I think one day I wouldn’t be surprised if he is competing.
‘He owns a team – M10 Esports – and he has players. He has a gaming house in Germany. He has football, like FIFA, and Fortnite.’
Ozil’s Twitch channel, which he started in 2018, has 175,000 subscribers. He streams Fortnite on a regular basis, and there was a crazy conspiracy theory circulating a few years ago that claimed his ongoing back problems were linked to his gaming addiction.