Fenerbahçe’s top executives, who aren’t imprisoned, gave messages of unity and stated the club would not allow “religious sects” to sneak in while it struggles at the center of match-fixing allegations in Turkey.

Club board and members gathered last weekens without President Aziz Yıldırım, who was imprisoned pending trial along with four other important board members and executives as part of the ongoing match-fixing scandal probe. So far, a total of 26 people have been placed under arrest as part of the scandal, that rocked Turkish football, which has initiated after police announced that 19 games in Turkey’s top two football leagues were allegedly rigged and manipulated last season.

Sports and Politics in Fenerbahce match fixing case

Council head Yüksel Günay stated Fenerbahçe was a secular team and that no Islamic religious sect could sneak into the 104 years old club. In recent years, with ruling AKP administration gaining in power wiyh won elections Islamic religious sects have increased their influence in Tukey and are powerful in some sections of the economy, feeding on religious benefits and abuse of religion.

“Fenerbahçe is a community of 23 million people (fans) committed to the Constitution of the Turkish Republic and the revolutions of [Republic founder Mustafa Kemal] Atatürk,”the council head continued. “It is Turkey’s strongest civil society [group]. No religious sect can live in this club.” he claimed.

Turkish Writer : Fenerbahce match fixing scandal is a coup attempt by Turkish government

Although there are other six top-flight clubs allegedly involved in the match-fixing probe scandal, many Fenerbahçe supporters believe that the probe targets solely their club’s presidency, and that a new chairman with closer relations to the conservative government AKP would be brought in after Aziz Yıldırım was toppled, as he also declared with a written statement, that he would resign as Fenerbahce president, regardless how the probe should end.

Prominent writer, documentarist and columnist Can Dündar wrote that the case was “a coup” attempt by the AKP government.

“This is definitely a coup, parallel to the political structure and there is more to come,” he wrote only two weeks ago. “The government has the ball now.”

Murat Ülker was suggested as a successor, however the current Ülker Group chairman is reportedly not interested in the presidency of Fenerbahce.

Ülker, the major Turkish producer of biscuits, chocolate and candies, is a main sponsor of Fenerbahçe. The company had one of the Turkey’s leading basketball teams in Ülkerspor before it was merged with Fenerbahçe in 2006 and took the name Fenerbahçe Ülker. Ülker Group is getting bitter and is also known as a bastion for ”green capital”, a phrase used in describing islamic rooted business industry in Turkey.

Fenerbahce fans, officials, congress members sobbing over speech

“Fenerbahçe had two presidents, two prime ministers (current AKP head and turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan), 117 generals and admirals, 48 ministers, 1,168 deputies and senators and 27 governors as congress members,” Günay said. “Now a club like this is [accused of being] affiliated with crimes such as organised crime ang gangsterism. You cannot hurt a civil organization that is only occupied with sports like that. Our pride isn’t something to be toyed with.”

Deputy chairman Nihat Özdemir also spoke and stated the club would keep on standing tall.

“Fenerbahçe was not built in a day, and it will most certainly not collapse in a day,” Özdemir shouted from the podium, and many Fenerbahce congress members burst into sobbing.

 

[adrotate group=”9″]