Fenerbahçe made an unusual move yesterday by abandoning the Super Cup final match being played at the April 11 Stadium in the southeastern Turkish city of Şanlıurfa, deepening the deep credibility crisis facing Turkish football in general and the Turkish league in particular, after a series of violent incidents and amid allegations of corruption.
The match, moved to Turkey after the final initially due to be played in Saudi Arabia was called off because of the multiple bans imposed by the authorities in Riyadh against Turkish national symbols, had been surrounded by a rarefied atmosphere for days. Fenerbahçe had not taken part in the usual pre-match press conference, there was no handshake as the players took to the pitch, and even more bizarrely, Ali Koç’s team had called up a starting eleven for the Super Cup final made up of players from its U-19 team.
Amidst this strange atmosphere, Galatasaray took control of the ball as soon as the game got underway and not even a minute had passed before the Lions scored their first goal, scored by Mauro Icardi. Within moments, Fenerbahçe U-19 coach Murat Zeki Göle instructed his players to leave the pitch, which they did immediately, leaving Galatasaray’s players and fans stunned. Referee Volkan Bayarslan and his assistants waited up to 3 minutes in vain for the Fener players to return, before finally ending the match.
The Galatasaray players exploded with joy at this decision and ended up playing a game among themselves on the pitch to the delight of the few fans who decided to stay and watch this strange spectacle. It will now be up to the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) to make the final decision, but in principle, as one of the teams deliberately abandoned the match, the regulations state that the team automatically loses 0-3 and the victory is awarded to their opponents, in this case Galatasaray.
In any case, Koç’s team had already announced this week that its players would abandon the Super Cup final in protest at what they see as persecution and mistreatment of Fenerbahçe in the Turkish league, especially after the TFF rejected the team’s request to postpone the final to give them more time to prepare for the UEFA Conference League match they are due to play in just a few days’ time. Tensions between Fenerbahçe and the Federation have been running high since the aggression suffered by several of its players in the match against Trabzonspor almost a month ago, in which there was a massive pitch invasion, events for which Fenerbahçe even threatened to leave the league. But in reality, this new crisis in Turkish football began with the brutal assault on a referee in a league match, at the hands of the president of one of the first division teams.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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