Mehmet Scholl - Personal Life

Personal Life

Scholl was born in Karlsruhe, the second son of Ergin and Hella Yüksel, a Turkish father and a German mother. When he was five, his parents divorced, and his mother then married Hermann Scholl from whom Mehmet acquired his last name.

In May 2002 and October 2003, he released two successful mixtapes, featuring his favourite bands. The compilation's title "Mehmet Scholl kompiliert - Vor dem Spiel ist nach dem Spiel" is a reference to Sepp Herberger's famous expression "nach dem Spiel ist vor dem Spiel" ("after the game is before the game"). In an interview, Scholl said he chose this title because he listens to this music before the game, after the game, in the car on the way to the stadium, and in the car when leaving the stadium. The first volume includes songs by The Beta Band, Sportfreunde Stiller, Jimmy Eat World, and The Notwist (complete tracklist) among others. The second volume includes songs by Oasis, Wir sind Helden, and The Flaming Lips (complete tracklist) to name a few. Once a month, he co-presents the feature Mehmets Schollplatten in the program Nachtmix of the Bayern 2 radio station, which is the culturally oriented channel of the federal public broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk.

In 1993, Scholl married Susanne Pfannendörfer. Their son Lucas-Julian was born on 5 July 1996. Scholl and his wife separated just three months later, in October that same year. They are now divorced. His second wife Jessica gave birth to a girl named Polli in April 2006.

As a young player, Scholl was quoted with the words "hängt die Grünen, solange es noch Bäume gibt" ("hang the Greens while there still are trees"), seemingly expressing his dislike for the German Green Party. He was widely criticized for this quote because most people did not understand his point which was to point that in near future there might be no trees left, thereby giving his statement an ironic touch. Even though he made further ironic remarks in this interview ("One thing you'd never do?" "I'd never put a blind man at an advertising pillar and tell him that this is the wall he needs to walk down to get home."), some people did not get the jokes. However, he was sued by a Green politician for instigation to murder and eventually he donated 15,000 DM to charity. Afterwards, Scholl was asked by a journalist which party he would vote for, but he answered: "Of course, green, because I cannot let them down", which is a better pun in German ("Grün natürlich, ich kann sie ja nicht hängenlassen"). Perhaps, rendering Scholl into English thus; 'green naturally - I cannot leave them hanging' conveys a little more of his wit.

Scholl is officially without religious confession, but is an avid follower of Buddhist principles.

Since his retirement from football, he has taken up nine-pin bowling (Kegeln), a sport in which he already excelled as a youth.