Zlatan Ibrahimovic confirmed on Wednesday his stance that athletes should not interfere in politics following LeBron James' criticism of the AC Milan player.
The former Sweden international is not in favour of athletes speaking out about politics, but the Los Angeles Lakers star made clear that he will always express his opinion on such ways.
Ibrahimovic had a different opinion and did not hesitate to express it in a press conference at the San Remo Music Festival.
"Racism and politics are different things, Athletes unite the world, politics pides it," said Ibrahimovic, according to Marca.
"Everyone is welcome in our environment, no matter where you come from and we do everything to bring people together.
"Our role is to unite the world by doing what we do best. We do not do other things because we are not good, otherwise I would be in politics.
"My message? Athletes should be athletes and politicians should be politicians."
"He's the guy who said in Sweden he was talking about the same things, because his last name wasn't a [traditional Swedish] last name, he felt like there was some racism going on when he was out on the pitch," said LeBron a few days ago.