Zlatan Ibrahimovic is not backing down from his original comments. The AC Milan forward made waves last week when he said he did not LeBron James and other athletes should engage in politics, saying in a recent interview that they should “stay out of it.”
“[LeBron] is phenomenal at what he’s doing, but I don’t like when people have some kind of status, they go and do politics at the same time,” Ibrahimovic told Discovery+ in Sweden. “Do what you’re good at. Do the category you do. I play football because I’m the best at playing football. I don’t do politics. If I would be a political politician, I would do politics.
“That is the big first mistake people do when they become famous and they become in a certain status. Stay out of it. Just do what you do best because it doesn’t look good.”
James fired back when accused Ibrahimovic of hypocrisy while referencing when he referenced his outspoken comments about racism in his homeland in 2018.
Well, Zlatan came right back this week to reaffirm his original message.
“Athletes unite the world, politics divide it,” he said. “Our role is to unite the world by doing what we do best. Athletes should be athletes and politicians should do politics.”
Last year, the Lakers star used his platform to ahead of the presidential election to launch “More Than A Vote”, a nonprofit aiming to fight Black voter suppression and encourage minority voter turnout across the nation.
