Soccer legend Toni Kroos said he believes Germany’s influx of migrants was "too uncontrolled" and that the country has changed considerably in the 10 years since he left.
The Germany and Real Madrid star, who returned to his home country for the Euros this summer, said he welcomed migrants but concluded that Germany was not successful in managing mass immigration.
In an interview recorded before his country lost to Spain last 5 July, he compared the two countries and agreed with his interviewers that there was a feeling of "loss of control" in Germany.
When pressed by a conservative-leaning podcast, he replied: "I believe that this control over certain issues has simply slipped away a little over the years and there’s a reason for that. In my opinion, the reason is that people have overwhelmed them."
He said that it was "great" how Germany had greeted migrants with open arms, before adding that "it was just too uncontrolled".
He added: "I think we didn’t manage it, this basically very positive approach that I support 1000 per cent, because I find that sensational, that people come to us from the outside and then are happy."
He said he thought the impact of migration was "underestimated", and was "in the end something too uncontrolled".
"Clearly when many people come, there is always a percentage who do not do us good, just as there is among Germans," he said, adding that German attitudes to migration have become divided.
Germany has been split on the topic since Angela Merkel’s decision to allow a million refugees to enter Germany in 2015 with the far-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) entering the German Parliament in the aftermath.
Olaf Scholz’s "traffic light" coalition passed reforms allowing dual citizenship but the AfD rose to new heights, recently coming second in the European elections.
Earlier in the interview, before the issue of migration was raised, Kroos said he would be staying in Spain after retiring from Real Madrid, in part because he didn’t feel his home country was safe enough for his daughter.