Mesut Özil said one sentence about FIFA on a pitch in Istanbul in late October. Just under three weeks later, his name and personal details sat on Mirotvorets, the Ukrainian registry of people its administrators consider enemies of Ukraine.
The 38-year-old World Cup winner and former Real Madrid and Arsenal playmaker had been invited to a veterans’ friendly between Başakşehir and Zenit St Petersburg on October 21, which the Turkish side won 3-2. İdman və Biz reported that Özil used the occasion to call out football’s governing bodies.
“FIFA did not impose sanctions on Israeli teams, while similar measures were taken against Russian clubs. I call on FIFA to abandon double standards and treat everyone equally,” he told reporters at the match.
On November 9, Mirotvorets added his profile with the stated reason “support for the conduct of the special military operation”, the phrase Russia uses for its invasion of Ukraine.
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Founded in 2014, no official government standing
Mirotvorets, which translates as Peacemaker, was set up in December 2014 and is run by a Ukrainian NGO rather than directly by the state. Its database publishes names, photographs and private data of people its operators accuse of acting against Ukraine’s interests, including foreign journalists, cultural figures and politicians.
İdman və Biz noted that being added to the site “does not constitute an official government sanction or criminal conviction”.
Human rights bodies, including Human Rights Watch and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, have repeatedly criticised the practice of publishing personal data in this way, warning it exposes those listed to physical danger. Russian and some Western outlets routinely label the registry a “kill list” after two Ukrainian public figures whose addresses it published in April 2015, writer Oles Buzina and former parliamentarian Oleg Kalashnikov, were shot dead within days of being listed.
Infantino and four CSKA Moscow players already on it
Özil is not the first high-profile football name to be added. FIFA president Gianni Infantino was placed on Mirotvorets on February 3, 2026 after suggesting Russian teams should be allowed back into international competition. Ukraine’s foreign minister Andriy Sybiha later called him a “moral degenerate”.
In June, RT reported that four CSKA Moscow players, Brazilians Matheus Reis and João Victor alongside Russians Danila Kozlov and Vladislav Tropo, were added after taking part in a club initiative tied to a Russian Cup match against Krasnodar that raised money for the rehabilitation of Russian servicemen who had fought in Ukraine.
Özil’s professional career ended in 2023 at Istanbul Başakşehir, and he now appears mainly on Turkish and German television and at veterans’ events, which gave his Istanbul comments their reach.
His entry on Mirotvorets remained live at the time of publication.
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