Everything in Turkish football, it seemed, was going too well. Galatasaray have been flying in the Champions League, powered by Victor Osimhen. Arda Güler is soaring at Real Madrid with goals and assists. Even the men’s national team, under Vincenzo Montella, have looked their most promising in years.
But it would not be Turkish football without drama and drama is what the hardline president of the Turkish Football Federation (TFF), İbrahim Hacıosmanoğlu, has delivered.
He promised to drain the swamp and after an internal investigation he declared the swamp not only existed but was flowing right under the pitch. “As a federation, we started by cleaning up our own back yard,” Hacıosmanoğlu said. “If we want to bring Turkish football to the place it deserves, we have to clean up whatever dirt there is.”
Ibrahim Hacıosmanoğlu, president of the Turkish Football Federation. Photograph: Mostafa Bassim /Anadolu/Getty Images
The investigation’s figures would be funny if they weren’t true. It found 371 of 571 active referees across the professional leagues held betting accounts. Worse, 152 officials were actively gambling, including seven top-tier Süper Lig referees.
Referees are banned from betting on football under Fifa’s code of ethics but the data revealed one official had placed more than 18,000 football bets in five years and 42 officials had bet on more than 1,000 matches each. Some officials have claimed they were not betting on games they were officiating or that they signed up to betting sites to watch football matches. But Turkish refereeing, long regarded as prone to error, may have been fundamentally compromised.
For years the tribal fanbases of the Süper Lig’s big hitters – Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe, Beşiktaş and Trabzonspor – have viewed officiating decisions with suspicion that has suffocated the game’s atmosphere, leading to the collapse of public trust in referees and the football authorities.
Every debatable penalty, bizarre video assistant referee decision or controversial red card added to the pressure and was regarded as evidence of manipulation. Everything spilled over in 2011 during the country’s most recent major match-fixing scandal and the suspicion has been escalating since.
In 2015 when the Fenerbahçe team bus was shot at by unknown gunmen – almost forcing it off a cliff – the club linked the attack to pervasive hostility related to match-fixing allegations that had long swirled around them.
That year Hacıosmanoğlu, the Trabzonspor president at the time, was so incensed by a refereeing decision that he locked the officials in the stadium overnight, releasing them only after an intervention from the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
In 2023 Faruk Koca, the then MKE Ankaragücü president, stormed on to the pitch against Rizespor and punched the referee, Halil Umut Meler, in the face. Distrust in referees reached the point where the Dutch referee Danny Makkelie was appointed to the Galatasaray-Fenerbahçe derby this year in an attempt to pacify both sides
MKE Ankaragucu’s president, Faruk Koca, punches the referee Halil Umut Meler. Photograph: Emin Sansar/Anadolu/Getty Images
The establishment spent years dismissing the culture of suspicion as wild conspiracy, exacerbating the distrust. The TFF was long perceived as the root of the problem but Hacıosmanoğlu’s response to the investigation was clear.
“We believe we will succeed on this path to clean football,” he said. “We are aware that this is a long and difficult path. However, every evening has its morning. The sun will surely rise after the darkness. Our duty is to elevate Turkish football to its rightful place and to purge it of all its filth.”
The consequences of the country’s most aggressive football clean-out have been immediate and sweeping. The TFF has suspended 149 referees and assistant referees and introduced an AI-enhanced VAR apparatus and a whistleblower hotline in the fight against match-fixing.
But the net has been cast wider than ever. The Istanbul chief public prosecutor’s office has opened a criminal investigation, issuing detention orders for 21 individuals, including club executives. Murat Özkaya, the chair of the Süper Lig side Eyüpspor, was among those arrested. And in the most dramatic move, the TFF suspended more than 1,000 players across various leagues for alleged betting violations.
The TFF’s professional football disciplinary board (PFDK) announced that 102 professional footballers from the top two tiers had been suspended, with punishments ranging from 45 days to one year, for violating rules prohibiting betting on matches. This group includes 25 Süper Lig players.
The punishments did not spare the elite clubs, or even the national team. The Galatasaray and Turkey defender Eren Elmalı was handed a 45-day suspension. He stated on social media that his betting activity occurred five years ago on a match that did not involve his team at the time and he pointed to a youthful misunderstanding of the rules. His clubmate Metehan Baltacı, a Turkey Under-21 centre-back, received a nine-month ban.
Fenerbahçe’s team bus was shot at in 2015. Photograph: Hakan Burak Altuno/Anadolu/Getty Images
As part of the criminal investigation more than 1,000 players across all leagues were referred for inquiry. The TFF has shut down the third and fourth divisions for two weeks to manage the fallout, while the top two leagues continue with depleted squads.
Hacıosmanoğlu’s TFF has drawn a line in the sand, signalling an end to the culture of impunity that has plagued the sport for decades. Provided it sees this investigation through to the end, it could bring the radical change Turkey’s football needs. A genuine clean-up is the only way to shift fans’ energy away from resentment toward the establishment and back to the pitch, allowing them to believe in a fair contest again.
“Football is more than sport – it is unity, pride and peace,” Hacıosmanoğlu said. “We will stand firm against anything that darkens this joy. The deserving will always win.”
