DOHA: Former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has defended Mesut Ozil after comments made by the Gunners midfielder condemning treatment of Uighur Muslims led to a stinging backlash in China.
“Mesut Ozil has the freedom of speech like everybody else and he uses his notoriety to express his opinions which are not necessarily shared by everybody, but he has the right to do that,” Wenger told journalists in Doha on Wednesday.
“You are a human being, you have an opinion, and then when you play football you play football. You do your job first and you have to respect that.”
Ozil, a German of Turkish origin, condemned China’s crackdown on Muslim minorities in the western region of Xinjiang in a tweet last week.
In response, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV pulled its coverage of Arsenal’s Premier League game against Manchester City last weekend.
Arsenal have distanced themselves from Ozil’s comments, but Chinese state media warned that they would have “serious implications” for his club. On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced China’s reaction over the matter.
“What is important is that Ozil has an individual responsibility. He does not carry the word of Arsenal Football Club, so what he says is about himself and not about Arsenal,” added Wenger, who oversaw Ozil’s arrival at the Emirates Stadium from Real Madrid in 2013.
However, the Frenchman added: “When you make a comment about your individual opinion, you accept the consequences of it.”
Wenger, now 70, is in Qatar — where this week’s Club World Cup is taking place — in his new role as FIFA’s Chief of Global Football Development.
However, he continues to monitor goings-on at his old club very closely and admits to being saddened by Arsenal’s current travails.
Wenger departed in May 2018 after 22 years in charge and his successor, Unai Emery, was sacked late last month. Former player Mikel Arteta is believed to be close to becoming the next manager.
Arsenal are currently 10th in the Premier League, seven points adrift of the Champions League places.
“When I left the club was in a very strong financial position and they bought many players in between,” said Wenger of the changes at the club.
“They have not all worked out but it’s not I believe a question of time, the change can be very efficient very quickly, and it is just about the right decision-making.”
Arteta, who played for the club under Wenger and is currently Pep Guardiola’s assistant at Manchester City, is just 37 and has not yet worked as a manager in his own right.
However, Wenger believes the Spaniard has a “great future.”
“He has learned a lot in his first position as an assistant coach, and after that he will have to deal with the fact that he has no experience at that level, and he will have to be surrounded well, have a good environment at the club.
“I think the most important thing is that every club — and Arsenal especially — is built on special values, and inside the club people have to take care of that.”
Wenger defends Ozil after Uighur comments cause storm in China
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Wenger defends Ozil after Uighur comments cause storm in China
- Arsene Wenger: You are a human being, you have an opinion, and then when you play football you play football
- Ozil, a German of Turkish origin, condemned China’s crackdown on Muslim minorities in the western region of Xinjiang
2025 among world’s three hottest years on record, WMO says
- All eight datasets confirmed that the last three years were the planet’s three hottest since records began, the WMO said
- The slight differences in the datasets’ rankings reflect their different methodologies and types of measurements
BRUSSELS: Last year was among the planet’s three warmest on record, the World Meteorological Organization said on Wednesday, as EU scientists also confirmed average temperatures have now exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming for the longest since records began.
The WMO, which consolidates eight climate datasets from around the world, said six of them — including the European Union’s European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the British national weather service — had ranked 2025 as the third warmest, while two placed it as the second warmest in the 176-year record.
All eight datasets confirmed that the last three years were the planet’s three hottest since records began, the WMO said. The warmest year on record was 2024.
THREE-YEAR PERIOD ABOVE 1.5 C AVERAGE WARMING LEVEL
The slight differences in the datasets’ rankings reflect their different methodologies and types of measurements — which include satellite data and readings from weather stations.
ECMWF said 2025 also rounded out the first three-year period in which the average global temperature was 1.5 C above the pre-industrial era — the limit beyond which scientists expect global warming will unleash severe impacts, some of them irreversible.
“1.5 C is not a cliff edge. However, we know that every fraction of a degree matters, particularly for worsening extreme weather events,” said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at ECMWF.
Burgess said she expected 2026 to be among the planet’s five warmest years.
CHOICE OF HOW TO MANAGE TEMPERATURE OVERSHOOT
Governments pledged under the 2015 Paris Agreement to try to avoid exceeding 1.5 C of global warming, measured as a decades-long average temperature compared with pre-industrial temperatures.
But their failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions means that target could now be breached before 2030 — a decade earlier than had been predicted when the Paris accord was signed in 2015, ECMWF said. “We are bound to pass it,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. “The choice we now have is how to best manage the inevitable overshoot and its consequences on societies and natural systems.”
Currently, the world’s long-term warming level is about 1.4 C above the pre-industrial era, ECMWF said. Measured on a short-term basis, average annual temperatures breached 1.5 C for the first time in 2024.
EXTREME WEATHER
Exceeding the long-term 1.5 C limit would lead to more extreme and widespread impacts, including hotter and longer heatwaves, and more powerful storms and floods. Already in 2025, wildfires in Europe produced the highest total emissions on record, while scientific studies confirmed specific weather events were made worse by climate change, including Hurricane Melissa in the Caribbean and monsoon rains in Pakistan which killed more than 1,000 people in floods.
Despite these worsening impacts, climate science is facing political pushback. US President Donald Trump, who has called climate change “the greatest con job,” last week withdrew from dozens of UN entities including the scientific Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The long-established consensus among the world’s scientists is that climate change is real, mostly caused by humans, and getting worse. Its main cause is greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, which trap heat in the atmosphere.
