Fenerbahçe players did not finish the Super Cup match against Galatasaray

The match for the Turkish Super Cup, in which two giants of Turkish football “Galatasaray” and “Fenerbahce” met, ended in a loud scandal. Fenerbahçe fielded a U19 squad for the game, that is, players born in 2005 and 2006. The juniors conceded in the third minute, after which the coaches simply led the team off the field. The action was not spontaneous. Even before the match, Turkish media reported that Fenerbahçe would do just that.

Turkish football is getting into scandals with surprising consistency this season. The most recent one happened on Sunday during the Turkish Super Cup match. It featured two principal competitors – Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe (the teams are also fighting for the Turkish championship title – at the moment Galatasaray is only two points ahead of Fenerbahçe). However, instead of an uncompromising battle, the fans saw a farce. Fenerbahçe fielded not the main squad for the game, but a U19 team, that is, young men born in 2005–2006. Moreover, even before the match, Turkish media reported that Fenerbahçe would disrupt it. In particular, the publication Ajansspor, citing the management of the Istanbul club, claimed that it was the youth team that would go to Sanliurfa, where the match for the Super Cup took place (the city is located about 1 thousand km from Istanbul). In this case, three players will deliberately run into deletions, which will stop the game. This option allowed Fenerbahçe to avoid punishment for not showing up for the match and get off with a technical defeat.

It appears, however, that the three-deletion scheme was considered too complex. After all, the match did not last even five minutes. In the third minute, Mauro Icardi completed the combination started by Galatasaray from their own half of the field with a strong shot, after which the Fenerbahçe coaching staff led their team off the field. Fenerbahçe was awarded a technical defeat with a score of 0:3, Galatasaray was declared the winner of the trophy (the team even staged a celebration on this occasion), and instead of a real game, the spectators were invited to watch a “two-sided game” performed by Galatasaray players.

The management of Fenerbahçe took such a scandalous step as disrupting the match in protest against the fact that the country’s football authorities were allegedly oppressing the team.

The confrontation between Fenerbahçe and the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) escalated in mid-March after another controversial match. In it, the Istanbul team beat Trabzonspor away (3:2). They began to celebrate the victory right in the center circle, but the local public, already annoyed that Trabzonspor missed a draw at the close of the match, became completely upset at the sight of someone else’s joy, so much so that dozens of fans poured onto the field with the intention of beating the opposing players . As a result of the investigation, Trabzonspor will have to play six home matches without spectators. But Fenerbahçe players did not escape punishment either. Two of them – Irfan Can Egribayat and Jayden Ostervolde – received one-match suspensions.

This caused extreme indignation by Fenerbahçe president Ali Koç, who, like many other heads of Turkish clubs, has strained relations with TFF head Mehmet Buyukeksi. Ali Koç, after the story with Trabzonspor, even threatened to remove Fenerbahçe from the championship, but then the club announced that they had postponed this issue, since such a step required long-term preparation.

Perhaps the conflict would have lost its severity if Fenerbahçe had not again received a reason to express dissatisfaction with TFF.

The Istanbulites asked to postpone the ill-fated Super Cup match, since they had a UEFA Conference League quarter-final match against the Greek Olympiacos scheduled for Thursday, but were refused. The reaction to it was a demarche with the participation of juniors.

Although TFF can be understood. After all, the Super Bowl has already been postponed once. It was supposed to take place in December in Riyadh, but the Saudi authorities denied Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe the opportunity to play in jerseys with the image of the first president of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (in 2023, the centenary of the proclamation of the Turkish Republic was celebrated), stating that There is no place for political actions at football.

Apparently, the confrontation between top managers in Turkish football will only gain momentum. As reported by the Haberturk TV channel, a dozen and a half teams intend to sign the demand for the resignation of the head of the TFF, who is accused of being unable to manage the structure entrusted to him. Accusations of this kind began to sound loudly back in December last year after the scandalous match between Ankaragucu and Rizespor. After the final whistle, Ankaragucu President Faruk Koca and his entourage ran onto the field, punched the referee in the eye and began kicking him. The story was so scandalous that the TFF even suspended the national championship, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan personally took control of the investigation. The perpetrators eventually received long-term, up to life-long, disqualifications, but, as can be seen, the TFF leadership, even with such measures, is not able to keep the situation in Turkish football under control.

Alexander Petrov