The Turkish match-fixing scandal
As you might have read in CNN, WSJ or my own Hurriyet Daily News (try the sports section, there are a bunch of articles there), Turkish football is undergoing a huge match-fixing investigation, with current champions (for the moment) Fenerbahce at the center. A couple of readers have asked me what I think of that, and here are my impressions. If you don’t know what this is about, read the hyperlinked articles first, as I will assume you know the basics. Please remember that these comments are coming from a Besiktas fan with an eagle tattoo on his back…
The body of the eagle says, "black eagle" in Japanese, BTW!
…who hates Fenerbahce and spent a whole game swearing at the Fenerbahce President Aziz Yildirim, along with 32,000 fans, during a game in 2010. Having made the disclaimer and cleared my conscience, I can go on:
First of all, let’s start with the billion-dollar question: Did they do it? Probably. Is there evidence to implicate them? Probably. Will they lose the championship and be relegated? Probably. For one thing, I don’t agree with the recent comments that the Football Federation will find a midway such as stripping Fenerbahce of their championship, having them start the new season with negative points (as happened to A.C. Milan a few years ago), but keep them in First Division. That could be the case if the investigation was done more quietly, and high-profile names were not involved. But the size of the thing all but rules out anything except a corner solution. So either Fenerbahce will be exonerated, or they will be relegated, with Yildirim spending some time in prison. In the first couple of days, I was leaning towards the first scenario, but I now more and more think that the second outcome will be realized.
Second, the nature of the investigation has left question marks. For example, learned Fenerbahce fans were quick to note the similarities to the sham Ergenekon / Sledgehammer arrests. The sudden arrests and the way evidence has been fed to the media do indeed look surprisingly similar. They also note that the same staunch supporters of the political trials, such as the pro-government papers / columnists and the mysterious Taraf newspaper, are applauding the investigation. They contest that charges are cooked up, as part of an attempt by the government to take control of football. I see their point, but my main question is why the government would go against one of the two teams with the most supporters (Galatasaray and Fenerbahce have each about 20m supporters), especially when there will probably be a referendum on a new Constitution during the next year. Besides, it seems very suspicious to me that the arrests kicked off soon after the elections were over, especially since we now know that the investigations had been going on for several months. To me, it more seems like that the government’s only meddling with the investigation was to hold off the kick-off until after the elections.
Finally, it is important to know that Fenerbahce was not the first team to have fixed matches. There have been several suspicious incidents in the last three decades (probably earlier as well, but I have been watching games since the early 80s), most by Fenerbahce’s archrival Galatasaray, against my beloved Besiktas- the most notable being the one in the late 80s, when they allegedly gave a car and a flat to each Denizlispor player for beating Besiktas, and when they bought off Ankaragucu goalkeeper Zalad back in 1993, in a final game that ended with Galatsaray beating Ankaragucu 8-0. There is a fan song of that game, which is only chanted at Galatasaray and Ankaragucu games in Inonu (Besiktas’ stadium), and Besiktas fans refer to Galatasaray as “saibeci”, i.e. “those that have cheated”. I assure you these are not the rantings of a fanatic; Zalad, an-ex Besiktas goalkeeper, is the only player whose name is not in the 100th year Jersey. In sum, Galatasaray probably deserves to be where Fenerbahce is now more; Fenerbahce’s “misfortune” is that they fixed matches after the new sports law, which designates payments to affect match results a heavy crime, was passed in April.
BTW, I am impressed with myself; I just finished a whole post without calling Fenerbahce ezikbahce, their president Azize Yildivim, and other derogatory remarks. I would even say that transferring the blog to Roubini has turned me into a gentleman- if I didn’t know any better:):):)
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