It’s a bit hot for three-piece suits in London, I can tell you that much, but when one has a personal ‘brand’ to maintain, the air temperature can’t get in the way 🙂

It’s also getting hot over at the German FA by the looks of it, because yesterday Mesut Özil dropped a bomb on social media declaring that whilst Reinhard Grindel – the head honcho at the German FA – is still in charge he will never play for Germany again.

This public outing of Grindel was made via a release on social media and included specific examples of his comments whilst being a politician about immigration. Özil also gave some examples of some of the xenophobic abuse he’d been getting from some German people.

It’s fair to say that it was a ‘gloves off’ statement from our number 10 and it was clearly intended on defending himself in the wake of criticism both on the pitch and off of it, specifically with his picture with Turkish President Erdogan.

Everybody always says that Football and politics should not be interwoven but sadly, as always seems to be the case, they invariably do and I find it a sorry state of affairs when a footballer has to make the kind of comments that Özil has made. Sadly footballers are subjected to horrific abuse on social media and most of the time they just have to suck it up and ignore it. It shouldn’t be like that, people shouldn’t behave in such reprehensible ways, but footballers have to learn to have a thick skin from an early age.

And I find that so depressing.

So statements like his and how he feels he has to explain some of the disgusting behaviour he has been treated to are a damming indictment on the world we live in.

It is a damning indictment on social media and the horrible things trolls say.

It is a damning indictment on the fact the German FA seem to have used a poster boy for inclusion and success for the national team as a fallout guy from a disappointing World Cup.

It is a damning indictment on the media too, who in Germany appear to have perpetuated this approach of sticking the knife in to Özil, because he had his picture taken. Erdogan may not be a very nice person, he may have a horrendous history of silencing free speech, but his picture with Özil shouldn’t have left some sections of the German media jumping on Mesut as they have done. Football and politics shouldn’t mix but the media are as bad as the politicians in making sure that they keep them together. Because it stirs conflict and that in turn gives them an opportunity to create more scandal and get more clicks and hits.

Mesut Özil is a footballer. That’s all he wants to be. So let him be a footballer. That’s what we do at The Arsenal and I think you’ll see a massive rallying round him from all Gooners. He’s one of ours and if he doesn’t feel loved by the German FA, then he’ll get back to London and see very quickly where he is loved.

We’ve got Özil….