Arsenal coach Unai Emery has denied a report that he blocked Germany coach Joachim Low from seeing Mesut Ozil during a visit to the club's training ground this week.
German newspaper Bild said Low and general manager Oliver Bierhoff had hoped to talk to Ozil, who retired from the Germany team in July and cited racism in the German FA, but that they were not allowed to attend "at the behest of Arsenal coach Umai Emery."
However, Emery denied the report when asked about it by Sky Sports following Arsenal's 3-1 win over Brentford in the Carabao Cup.
"It's not true, it's not true," Emery said.
A club source also told ESPN FC that the report was incorrect, saying that Low was at the training ground in London Colney to have lunch with Per Mertesacker, who is now the academy director at Arsenal. He also met with fellow Germans Shkodran Mustafi and Bernd Leno while he was there, but Ozil was not at the training ground at the time, the source said.
It was unclear why Ozil was absent, but he was among several first-team regulars who were rested for the Brentford game.
Low and Bierhoff attended FIFA's The Best awards in London at the weekend. Last month, Low said he had tried to make contact with Ozil but his calls were not returned.
The build-up to Germany's World Cup campaign was overshadowed by a photograph that Ozil and Manchester City's Ilkay Gundogan -- another Germany player with Turkish heritage -- had taken with the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in mid-May.