Mesut Ozil removed from PES 2020 in China after criticising government

Football’s a funny old game, but if you criticise China’s governmental policy on social media, it becomes far less funny. Mesut Özil, Arsenal star player, posted on Instagram and Twitter a robust criticism of China’s treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang as well as the silence this treatment has elicited. As translated by the Guardian, the post reads: “[In China] Qurans are burned, mosques were closed down, Islamic theological schools, madrasas were banned, religious scholars were killed one by one. Despite all this, Muslims stay quiet.”