Mainz 05, a German football club, has recently made the decision to terminate Dutch winger Anwar El Ghazi’s contract over social media posts related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The club released a statement on Friday, announcing that El Ghazi’s contract had been terminated due to “comments and posts from the player on social media,” without providing any further details.
El Ghazi, who is 28 years old, had previously been suspended by the club for a now-deleted post regarding the conflict in the Middle East but was allowed to return to practice earlier this week.
“Stand for what is right, even if it means standing alone,” El Ghazi said in a social media post after his termination.
“The loss of my livelihood is nothing when compared to the hell being unleashed on the innocent and vulnerable in Gaza,” he said.
In a social media post on October 27, he clarified that “to the extent my previous statements on social media have been misunderstood, I would like to make clear that I stand for peace and humanity for all”.
Mainz said last Monday that they lifted the suspension and were giving him a second chance, saying he spoke out against terrorism of all kinds, including from Hamas, and also did not question Israel’s right to exist, Al Jazeera reported.
However, in a further social media post on Wednesday, El Ghazi indicated that the club had issued its statement without his permission.
“I do not regret or have any remorse for my position,” the player wrote. “I do not distance myself from what I said and I stand, today and always until my last breath, for humanity and the oppressed.”
He posted another statement in which he condemned “the killing of all innocent civilians in Palestine and Israel”.
“There can never be any justification for the killing of over 3,500 children in Gaza in the last three weeks….I and we as a world cannot conscionably (sic) remain silent. We must call for an end to the killing in Gaza now,” the post adds.
Before El Ghazi’s termination on Friday, German prosecutors accused him of “disturbing public peace by condoning criminal acts in conjunction with incitement to hatred” through his social media posts.