EXCLUSIVE
exile
Kia Joorabchian says Mesut Ozil’s situation at Arsenal ‘should have been resolved two years ago’ by German’s agent
Kia Joorabchian has lamented Mesut Ozil’s ongoing exile at Arsenal, telling talkSPORT the situation ‘should have been resolved two years ago’.
Ozil was frozen out of the first-team by manager Mikel Arteta for all of the Gunners’ 13 matches after lockdown last season, with the playmaker’s last competitive appearance coming in their 1-0 win against West Ham in March.
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He has failed to impress since signing his bumper £350,000-a-week contract in 2018 and Arsenal had been hoping to offload the German this summer, before his contract expires next year.
However, Ozil has stated publicly that he is going nowhere and even returned to action at the weekend as he played his first game in six months, in Saturday’s pre-season defeat to Aston Villa.
With no clubs apparently willing to pay up to sign Ozil, it is now expected he will STAY at the Emirates for one final season, although it is unclear if he will be part of Arteta's plans when the competitive action starts.
Super agent Joorabchian was asked about Ozil’s situation at the Emirates on Tuesday, as he joined talkSPORT host Jim White in the studio.
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And he suggested the World Cup winner’s deteriorating status may have a lot to do with his agent not trying hard enough to fix the rift between his client and the club.
Asked about the situations surrounding Ozil at Arsenal and Gareth Bale at Real Madrid, Joorabchian said: “I don’t want to talk about Gareth Bale or Mesut Ozil because I don’t represent them.
“But I want to talk about that in general, I think as an agent and in the work we’re set out to do, we are there to solve problems, not create them.
“Of course you get a situation like Mesut where the club and player don’t see eye to eye or something has gone wrong…
“When we have a situation where the player has a problem, we have to try to resolve it. I don’t think let's sit back and wait for the club and say ‘it’s your problem, not mine’. I think that’s just a bad agent.
“The Ozil situation should have been resolved two years ago.
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“I mean, what is the point of a player sitting there not playing? Who gains from that?
“The club doesn’t gain from that, the player is ageing so he doesn’t gain from that, the agent doesn’t gain from that, I’m not exactly sure other than the fact that the player has a monetary gain from his income. I don’t think anybody really gains from such a situation.
“I can’t ever remember us [Joorabchian and his agency team] not trying everything to resolve a problem.
“I just don’t see the point of it, because you leave a player unhappy, the family of that player unhappy and the club is unhappy.
“It’s always like you’re playing game of chicken with yourself. I’m not sure why you’d want to leave a player unhappy like that.”
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