On 22 July 2018, the footballer of Turkish origin Mesut Özil surprisingly announced his resignation from the German national team. To what extent does Özil’s migration background play an important role in this context? And does the public focus on his Turkish origin? Using the methodology of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the present article aims to examine the explicit and implicit verbal strategies for the image representation of people with a migration background. The study is based on a critical analysis of online comments on the resignation of Özil in German newspapers and magazines of different types, which present a wide range of opinions. The analysis shows that the discussion with respect to Özil's withdrawal is characterized by various discursive positions, ranging from empathy to sharp objective criticism and an ethno-culturally discriminatory attitude, thus representing a broad spectrum of the ‘cultural other’.

Keywords: Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), resignation of Mesut Özil, frame analysis, stereotype, persons with a migration background