Liverpool FC legend and TV Pundit, Jamie Carragher, has slammed Arsenal star player Mesut Ozil for refusing to take a pay cut to ease the club's financial struggles during the Coronavirus crisis.
Arsenal confirmed on Monday that the first team squad along with head coach Mikel Arteta and his staff had agreed to a 12.5% overrall reduction in wages.
There are reports that Ozil alongside two other players rejected taking pay cuts.
Carragher believes that the 31-year-old half German half Turkish player has scored "a huge PR own goal".
"The fact the highest-paid player and possibly the biggest name at Arsenal has not gone with the rest of his team-mates and stuck together [is bad]," Carragher told The Football Show on Sky Sports News.
"Even if I was in Ozil's position and I did not agree with that, I think the fact the rest of the team, your manager and people at the club have decided to be as one and make this decision, you have to go with it as a team.
"Football is a team game, it's not an individual sport, and for someone like Ozil in that situation I think he's got to go with what the rest of the players are doing. It's a massive PR own goal.
"I'm not going to have a go at Mesut Ozil for the wages he's earned. If you want to have a go at Mesut Ozil for the wages he's got, blame the people who gave him the contract. We're all in every walk of life trying to earn as much money as we possibly can.
"But when a situation like this comes in and you're together as a team in a dressing room, I think the highest-paid member and the biggest name in that dressing room should be the one who almost sets the example really."
Ozil's agent, Dr Erkut Sogut, has come to the defence of his client saying every employee has the right to decide and question what happens to his salary.
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