AC Milan star Zlatan Ibrahimovic recently sent a message to Lebron James, urging the basketball icon to “stick to sports” and “stay out of politics”.
The 39-year old recently sat down with Discovery+ in Sweden and the candid conversation soon turned to other sports stars in other fields.
Zlatan was asked about Lebron James and despite speaking highly of a player considered one of the best in basketball in his time, the Swede was also critical of Lebron’s off-pitch activities.
“(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,” the Swede said per USA Today.
“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.”
Those who have been following Lebron know he is a huge activist and in 2020, was on on the forefront on the push for racial equality under the tag Black Lives Matter.
He also helped organize the “More than a vote campaign” which was an attempt to get Americans to go to the polling stations to vote in Joe Biden, his preferred candidate.
It didn’t take long for Lebron to respond to Zlatan and the 36-year old seemed to suggest there was some hints of hypocrisy in the Swede’s comments.
“He was the same guy who said when he was back in Sweden … because his last name wasn’t a certain last name, that he felt there was some racism going on when he was out on the pitch,” James said. “I speak from a very educated mind, so I’m kind of the wrong guy to actually go at because I do my homework.”
He was speaking in reference to Zlatan’s past comments where he said he was subjected to “undercover racism” because his last name bore some Bosnian roots, not Swedish.
