The new year could mean a new team for frozen out Arsenal star Mesut Ozil. Long linked with moves to destinations as varied as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States, it appears quite likely he’ll get a new home soon.
Given how the very handsomely paid German has not featured for the club since March 7, the sooner this happens, the better. It’s best for all involved Arsenal stop paying record wages to a man who does nothing but train, so where could he go?
Nothing is official yet, but the latest report, from Turkish outlet DHA, says he’s joining Fenerbahce, on a three-and-a-half-year deal.
The report goes on to say that Ozil will be handed a $3 million signing bonus, and make $6.1 million per year. In order to sweeten the deal for Fenerbahce, Arsenal are willing to handle his wages for the back half of this season/first six months of his new deal.
It’s the ultimate getting rid of your deadwood kind of transaction, and in essence, it will amount to sending a player out on loan at first, with the loan deal then becoming permanent. We’ve seen arrangements like this recently with Alexis Sanchez and Alvaro Morata.
With the 32-year-old soon to be out of contract, Arsenal just don’t have any real leg to stand on in negotiation right now.
It appears Fenerbahce have beaten out D.C. United in Major League Soccer. Ever since Wayne Rooney left, the downtrodden MLS side has been desperate for a new face of the franchise kind of player. According to Football.London, DC are prepared to do just that, offering more than just money to play football/soccer.
Their deal would give Ozil the opportunity to help promote his coffee company, M10 in the U.S. After all, the five time player of the year is also an individual brand, and he’ll probably be thinking brand first on his next move. which will be his final big payday as a player, given his age.
His agent, Dr Erkut Sogut, recently spoke out about his client’s future.
“We were not allowed to talk legally before Jan. 1 so now we are just starting to look at the options with the numbers and details,” Sogut said to ESPN over a week ago.
“I can’t talk about the clubs directly because it would be unprofessional but generally, there is six months left on the contract and it is nothing unusual that we will talk to people about different opportunities and try to find the best option for Mesut.
“He might stay at Arsenal until the summer but he might go. Mesut’s priority is to stay but you never know in football, things can change very fast. For the moment, we are just checking all the options for January and the summer.
“If we want to leave in January, I need to talk to Arsenal. If we sign for the summer, we don’t need to. That’s the situation. In the next seven to ten days, it will be a little clearer as now the transfer window is open, things can move faster.”
Being left out of the club’s Premier League and Europa League squads by manager Mikel Arteta, it’s clear that Ozil has long been not in the plans of their manager. The North London club is in the midst of a rebuild, and they can’t speed up the process of that until they finally settle the issue of what to do with Ozil.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Tribune and SB Nation. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.