Arsenal star Mesut Ozil visibly moved as chief executive Ivan Gazidis gives rousing impromptu speech backing Germany star in race row
Gunners supremo spoke at a barbecue on the club's pre-season tour after the playmaker had been the victim of an astonishing tirade from Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness
ARSENAL chief executive Ivan Gazidis received a standing ovation from the entire squad for a passionate speech praising Mesut Ozil.
Gazidis spoke out hours after Ozil had been the victim of an astonishing tirade from Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness.
And he made it clear that the club is giving its total backing to their star player in his escalating row with the German FA.
Gazidis delivered the impromptu speech on Monday night at a barbecue arranged for all the Arsenal staff who have travelled to Singapore for the pre-season friendlies against Atletico Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain.
He spoke of his pride at the multicultural nature of the club and specifically singled out Ozil for his role in helping Arsenal to become such a diverse and inclusive organisation.
The 29-year-old World Cup winner was visibly moved by Gazidis’ words of support and by the reaction of the entire playing squad, who stood up to applaud the speech and its sentiments.
Ozil was stunned when he was told of Hoeness’ rant within minutes of arriving in Singapore on Monday afternoon.
The Bayern president raged: “Ozil has been playing s*** for years. He last won a tackle before the 2014 World Cup and has been a poor excuse for a footballer.”
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Those comments were a direct response to Ozil announcing that he would no longer be available for the German national team because of racism and a lack of respect.
The outburst from such a senior figure at the German champions has privately shocked the Arsenal hierarchy.
There has not been any apology from Bayern but Arsenal are not planning to make an official complaint because they do not want to get into a war of words and drag the row out any longer than necessary.
Ozil is currently being pushed to his physical limits by Unai Emery’s new strength and conditioning coach Julen Masach in a drive to get him ready for Arsenal’s opening Premier League fixture against Manchester City.
The former Real Madrid star, Alex Iwobi and Mohamed Elneny only returned to training on Monday after being given time off to recover from the World Cup.
But they have been taking part in all the training sessions in the sweltering heat of Singapore despite being two weeks behind the other players in terms of fitness.
New boss Emery is determined to whip his squad into peak physical shape and even ordered a full training session within three hours of landing in Singapore on Monday after a 13-hour flight from London.
There was a double session of gym and fitness conditioning today and another tough work-out tomorrow before Thursday’s game against Atleti and the match against PSG on Saturday evening.
Ozil, Iwobi and Elneny could all be involved against Atletico but are unlikely to start the game after only three days’ preparations.
Emery has brought a 25-man squad to Singapore and will be joined in Dublin and Stockholm next week by Granit Xhaka, Nacho Monreal, David Ospina as well as new signings Lucas Torreira and Stephan Lichtsteiner.
Only Danny Welbeck is likely to miss the opening game against champions Manchester City after helping England to reach the World Cup semi-finals.
City, by contrast, could have as many as seven players ruled out for the big kick-off after John Stones, Kyle Walker, Raheem Sterling, Fabian Delph, Kevin De Bruyne, Vincent Kompany and Benjamin Mendy were all involved in the final weekend of the World Cup.