Problems of Turkish Football
On the one hand, the need to feel belonging to a certain group, on the other hand, the excitement of leaving our own identity as a part of the masses and taking on a completely different identity are the factors that attract fans to football. However, this is not always an innocent excitement.
When our favourite team has a match on the weekend, we usually try not to make an appointment with anyone. For us, watching that match always comes first on the list of things to do. Unlike other sports, football is a visual feast that draws the masses. However, there is also a side to it that we would like to see a lot. Sometimes, being a fan of a team makes us look at life through a pair of glasses that allow us to see reality differently. Without even realising that we are hurting our closest friends and loved ones in football discussions, we try to make an unnecessary defence of the team we love. Almost like a belief system, we perceive criticism directed at our team as if it were directed at our personality.
On the one hand, the need to feel belonging to a certain group, on the other hand, the excitement of leaving our own identity as a part of the masses and taking on a completely different identity are the factors that attract fans to football. However, this is not always an innocent excitement. The fact that a group coming out of a match encountered a young fan of the opposing team, attacked him and caused his death (1) shows that this sense of belonging and the excitement of being a fan has turned into a pathological and criminal problem. Insulting other people, crossing the boundaries of respect or actual assault are different degrees of this.
The incidents in which those who threw a bottle at the head of a child who came to the stadium to watch a match and caused his death could not be found despite all technological means (2) require the relations between football clubs and fans to be questioned. It may be misleading to perceive the problem as violence in football. It is more accurate to call it the hiding of violence in collective action. Violence, on the other hand, already exists everywhere in society, only its manifestation differs.
Especially in crowds, people, whose own personality disappears, can be involved in actions that can turn into violence without even thinking about it. Measures regarding mass psychology must be taken consciously. However, when we see the violence used by law enforcement officers who intervene in such incidents, it is possible to realise that the problem is not only football. Football only prepares the environment for the emergence of the feeling of violence that exists in society. It is also wrong to perceive it as the source of violence.
From the point of view of the government, which assumes the responsibility of governing the state, the situation is more complicated. Political parties, which generally seek the support of all levels of society, do not want to appear close to a certain group of fans. This is because in countries where the passion for football is high, fan groups have political determination. On the other hand, for the government, football is a tool that creates an opiate effect on the masses in order to keep the public away from the political agenda and thus to get rid of the reactions it may face. Therefore, football is in the close interest of states.
The impact of industrialised football on the social structure goes beyond the state-media relations. In addition to production and trade, corporatised football clubs have become a part of the capitalist lifestyle with their stocks listed on the stock exchange. From now on, football fandom has also gone beyond the dimension of being an ordinary team supporter, and has turned into a brush that draws colourful borders between the masses with numerous instruments that reinforce the sense of belonging in every aspect. What is important for the government is to realise that it has to be able to manage these borders in order to achieve its political goals. The absence of the rule of law and the predisposition of social morality to accept success independently of ethics certainly give governments the opportunity to manage this process.
Without understanding state-power relations and power-football relations, it is often misleading to understand the functioning of an institutional structure that manages football as an organic part of the state. Considering the moral decay in society, it would be naive to assume that this institutional structure will function within the legal framework. All over the world, the phenomenon of industrial football turning into a theatre with match-fixing and betting incidents that go beyond the sporting competition on the field can and does occur. The Totonero (3) and Calciopoli (4) incidents in Italian football prove this. In Italy, relegation penalties have been imposed on very big clubs with well-known names. However, if there is no rule of law in the country, the scandal may remain as it is and no sanctions are imposed. Similar scandals have been swept under the carpet and ignored in Turkey. Each problem ignored has pushed football into a deeper hole.
In England, known as the cradle of football, ‘hooligans’ have made people afraid to go to matches with the violence they have created. Finally, in 1985, 39 people died due to the incidents caused by English fans at Heysel Stadium in Belgium before Liverpool's match against Juventus. Teatcher, the Prime Minister of England at the time, stated that the punishment given by UEFA was insufficient and defended the banning of his country from European Cups for 5 years and forced UEFA to apply this punishment (5). The distancing of English fans from violent incidents started with such a process. However, the main development in English football is not fan fanaticism, but the organisation of football. This new organisation has completely changed the structure of football.
The Premier League ranks first in the world in terms of broadcasting revenues. In 2024, Sheffield United, which was relegated, earned 103.5 million Euros. The champion M.City, on the other hand, tripled the revenue received by all Turkish Super League teams with a revenue of 176.2 million Euros (6). Premier League broadcasting revenues broke a record as £6.7 billion for 4 years starting from the 2025-2026 season (7). With these broadcasting revenues, no country has the chance to compete with English teams in the long term. So let's look at how the Premier League was formed.
The Football League, which was established in England in 1888, witnessed an interesting event in the early 1990s. Five big clubs (Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Everton, Arsenal, Everton and Tottenham) agreed to establish a new elite league to overcome their discomfort with the sharing of broadcasting revenues. After various discussions, the Premier League was established in 1992. This establishment brought with it a restructuring in football in terms of administration, sport and finance. With long-term strategies, astronomical increases in revenues were experienced (8). In fact, the basic strategy was based on the idea that football was a spectacle and that the spectators should be attracted to this spectacle. And they succeeded.
Working as a company with a zero tolerance approach on certain issues, the Premier League soon became the most favourite league in the world. The broadcasting rights of the matches started to be bought by broadcasting organisations all over the world by paying high prices. When everything went according to plan, a structure was formed in which no one could tolerate the show being spoilt by referees or political factors. As revenues increased, maintaining and improving quality became a duty for the clubs, each of which is a company. While each club prioritised its own interests, the continuity of the system was more important.
The biggest difference that distinguishes the Premier League from other leagues is its ability to stay away from political influences and moral decay. Moral decay cannot be explained only by the deterioration in the structure of the clubs. It is necessary to recognise the influence of the fans in this process. Because the most important element of football is the fans. If social morality is not corrupt, clubs cannot deviate to unethical ways. If the supporters of a club support their favourite club with a moral understanding that is only indexed to success, the fact that this success comes by violating moral principles does not bother anyone.
Thus, a dilemma arises for the clubs. Either they will not compromise on moral principles and lose, or they will not recognise moral principles and win in the short term but will definitely lose in the long term. Fan pressure will not accept the first situation and will demand success at all costs, whereupon the club managements will embrace Machiavelli's ‘the ends justify the means’ approach. As a result, lasting success only means something domestically for Turkish clubs. The witch cauldron that Turkish football has fallen into causes the clubs to never reach the success of the clubs with equivalent budgets in Europe despite their high budgets.
As long as the fans are far from football culture and ethics, the clubs are condemned to the ignorance of the fans and the governments seek to manage the emotions of the masses, improvement in Turkish football is a dream. The football federation must be removed from being an instrument of the government's ambition to rule the masses. As in many areas, it is unreasonable to expect any benefit for football from a federation structure that is seen as an area where the government can create its own cadres. As a result, societies condemned to small happiness in their daily lives cannot escape from the emotional spiral in which football is accepted as the meaning of a whole life rather than a visual entertainment. Being angry at politics for taking advantage of this situation is like blaming water flowing from a vessel with a hole in it.
(1) https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oktay_Akdemir_cinayeti
(2) https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/sporarena/atilan-sise-batuhani-olumle-burun-buruna-getirdi-16959712
(4) https://victorydergi.com/calciopoli-temiz-ayaklar-operasyonu.html
