A few days ago we published an article on how the German media are treating Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang during the Arsenal transfer saga, and the unfairness of their approach.
Unfortunately things haven’t changed, and Bild are it again on Sunday in the most odd, and strangely arrogant, way.
Bild journalist Jorg Weiler explains he’s known Aubameyang since 2013 and when they first met he asked the footballer to perform his famous somersault.
Auba did, and Weiler says he’s a fun character, and isn’t the person many assume. The Arsenal target can speak five languages (Yes Mr Wenger, including English) and it’s not all about cars and flashy clothes.
Weiler also pointed out Aubameyang isn’t like a lot of other footballers, in that he’ll spend time with journalists after training and politely answer questions.
The article was all going so well, and then it changed.
Bild’s journalist says he’s always kept in touch with Auba, and has revealed that in November the footballer sent him a text complaining about a Borussia Dortmund punishment.
Aubameyang had been suspended after he took a camera crew to the club’s training ground without permission. There was more to it than that, the Dortmund player was filming something with a freestyler who is sponsored by Red Bull.
Anyway, Weiler received an SMS from the footballer reading: ‘This punishment was unfair.’
Since the ‘transfer theatre’ has started, all contact has broken off, which has led to Weiler breaking his confidence and revealing the text, which could of course make a bad BVB situation a tiny bit worse for the player.
And then, of course, the player’s father gets the blame: ‘But since the transfer theatre is running, unfortunately, any contact is broken.
This is no longer the “old” Auba. You’d think someone was driving him away and gaining total control over him. His father, with whom he shares the house in Dortmund? His family, who lives very well from him?
I wonder: If the transfer to Arsenal London bursts and he stays in Dortmund – can it be the same again? Will Auba be the old man again? A bit crazy, but a nice guy?’
No, it cannot be the same again, because the German media have made sure of that. Aubameyang is hardly now going to contact journalists who have already broken his confidence and published a private message critical of a club decision.
The footballer can’t be expected to be all sweetness and light with journalists who have built a campaign against his father and portrayed Aubameyang himself as something of a puppet, with his dad routinely called the ‘puppet-master’.
That campaign seems to have been motivated by Pierre Senior having the temerity to take racial offence when Auba’s transfer efforts were dismissed as a ‘monkey circus’. The Arsenal target and his father were both angry, with the latter taking to Instagram and saying: “I have the impression that he wants to bring us back to the Hitler era.”
The journalist clarified his comments as just a German saying, and apologised for any offence, which then saw Pierre Senior delete the anger fuelled post. That should have been the motivation for everyone involved to calm it down a bit, not the opposite.
Should Aubameyang get his transfer to Arsenal, even the British media will have to put in some effort to match the toxic reporting he’s now subjected to.
As for any actual updates on the move… there isn’t any. The Arsenal transfer saga rolls on and there’s now only three days left of the window.
