The football crazy country of Turkey was shaken with the erupting match-fixing scandal, involving top flight clubs like Fenerbahce, Trabzonspor and other clubs, footballers and managers.

Turkish police, officers from the Organized Crime Department raided residences after carrying out surveillance regarding the match-fixing allegations, launched the operation on Sunday morning into match-fixing allegations in Turkey’s first division football league and the scandal was expanded in the afternoon, with three club presidents taken under custody and locations raided in 12 provinces. The police have arrested around 40 people, including the president of Fenerbahce, one of the top sides in turkish football and regarded as one of the powerful personalities in the country, as part of an ongoing investigation into match-fixing last season on Sunday.

Turkey Football in shock : Fenerbahce president arrested

Aziz Yildirim was arrested early Sunday along with the club’s vice-president Sekip Mosturoglu and financial chief Tamar Yelkovan. Fenerbahçe Sports Club President Aziz Yıldırım was first to be detained in the probe into match-fixing allegations in the Turkish football league, being taken into the custody at 7.00 Am in local time.

Two newly acquired Fenerbahce players, former Karabükspor forward Nigerian striker Emmanuel Emenike and former Eskisehirspor forward Sezer Öztürk, were also among detained players.

Other top flight clubs were involved in the corruption scandal including Trabzonspor in the northeast, but the club’s vice-president Nevzat Sakar denied that he had been arrested as reported earlier by Anatolia.

Several footballers were also among those arrested in Ankara including Gençlerbirligi striker Serkan Calik and Ankaragücü goalkeeper Serdar Kulbilge, both Turkish international players.

Turkey League Champions under police investigation

The agency also said that a police search was under way at the headquarters of Fenerbahçe, the reigning champions of Turkey, who also reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League in 2008.

Arrests linked to the investigation also took place in the central town of Sivas where the president of Sivasspor, Mecnun Odyakmaz was taken in for questioning and at Izmir in the west where the cousin of Fenerbahçe midfielder Emre Belözoglu was being held, Mersin and Giresun.

Fenerbahce board chairman Yuksel Gunay slammed the detention of Yildirim, a building construction businessman who has been president of the club since 1998. “It is quite clearly just the manifestation of a police state,” he said. “Just which matches are they considering investigating?” A statement from Fenerbahce said: “Never in the history of our club, which is full of honours won, have we been implicated in any illegal acts and we never will be.

Fenerbahce clinched the league title on the final day last season by defeating Sivasspor 4-3 in Trabzonspor. The match-fixing investigation led to many arrests last year but this was the first time such high-level officials have been taken into custody.

Forty-nine people were detained in the operation, including Sivasspor Club President Mecnun Odyakmaz, Giresunspor Club President Ömer Ülkü and former president Olgun Peker, Diyarbakırspor former president Abdurrahman Yakut, Fenerbahçe Vice President Şekip Mosturoğlu, Mersin İdmanyurdu Club Vice President Beşir Acar, and Fenerbahçe’s new transfers Sezer Öztürk and Emenike. Among the detained was legendary former Fenerbahçe player Cemil Turan. Born in 1947, Turan was considered to be one of the best footballers ever to play in Turkey.

Police also conducted searches at Beşiktaş, Trabzonspor, Sivasspor headquarters and Turkish Football Federation offices early Sunday, broadcaster CNNTürk reported.

Initial reports said the games that were being looked into were Fenerbahçe’s matches against Eskişehirspor and the game against Sivasspor in the last week of the league, which sealed Fenerbahçe’s championship, but that number increased to 20 and is expected to rise further.

Reports said police officers also arrived at Diyarbakırspor offices and started conducting a search.

Fenerbahçe is one of the biggest and wealthiest teams in the Turkish football league. It was founded in 1907 in Istanbul’s Kadıköy’s district. The club has won the league championship 18 times, including this year. The club may have face charges and a relagation and the denouncement of the layest championship title.

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