Soccer Is Politics, Whether It Likes It or Not

Daniel Leal-Olivas/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Mesut Özil is slowly disappearing from China. An online forum dedicated to him has closed. He has been scrubbed from the version of Pro Evolution Soccer, the video game, that is available in the country. Arsenal's last Premier League game, at home to Manchester City, was not broadcast on Chinese television. It is not clear, yet, how long the blackout will last.

His offense was simple: he spoke. Last week, Özil released simultaneous statements on his Twitter and Instagram feeds, criticizing the Chinese government’s mass detention of Uighurs, a largely Turkic Muslim minority in Xinjiang province, in the China’s northwest. He called on…