On 17.04.2014 Chief Attorney of Turkish Supreme court rejected the appeal of Fenerbahçe SK’s president Aziz Yıldırım and he is going back to prison to complete his sentence. Despite the fact that he is a convicted match fixer whose sentence is finalised he remains as president of Fenerbahçe SK.
Alongside this incident, our thesis is strenghten by decleration of Devrim Hacısalihoğlu, professional disciplinary committee member; ‘ When we were offered a position in professional disciplinary committee, we were told that we will be there to close the case and asked to do what we weretold. I was appointed to the position despite rejecting this offer, but ALL OTHER MEMBERS ACCEPTED THE PROPOSAL.
Another devastating incident was a scene got cought on cameras at a baskerball game where Ethical committee member Mertay Kugay; who cleared Aziz Yıldırım in match fixing case report, was watchinf Fenerbahçe SK basketball game alongside Aziz Yıldırım.
At this stage, we have to mention our dissappoinment in UEFA with two fatal subject;
1) UEFA is yet to announce the verdict regarding the individuals in match fixing case of Fenerbahçe SK and Beşiktaş JK.
2) Despire UEFA’s rules and regulation, Turkish Football Federation do not apply relevant sanctions to teams involved in match fixing and keep protecting them from relegation. UEFA is obliged to get involved and make sure Turkish Football Federation relegates Fenerbahçe SK, Beşiktaş JK and Sivasspor FC.
As known; On 3rd of July 2011, the most organised crime organisation in Turkish football history was made public with arrests of police. This was no suprise for Turkish football fans, as there always were signs of match fixing activities in past and it was highly spoken that Fenerbahçe SK’s 16 win in 17 games of the sedond half of 2010-2011 season was even too suspicious to be a miracle.
People with good memory remember the very first day that Aziz Yıldırım, president of Fenerbahçe SK, started to establish match fixing organisation, after loosing the title to Galatasaray. His exact quote during a press release was; ‘ I learnt that championships are not won on the pitch and from know on I will ve working on that side of football’. And since that day he started to take over the power in Turkish football, where he end up controlling literally everything…
The wiretaps and evidence collected by Turkish police proved that Aziz Yıldırım controlled all committees of federation by locating people in its committees, which later helped him to steal championships by fixing matches.
Below is the information on these people, who work in Turkish Football Federation, helped Aziz Yıldırım during the match fixing scandal at court and outside court. The ones those are solicitors defended him at court, where he was found guilty of fixing several matches while they dedice in favour of Fenerbahçe SK at committees of Turkish Football Federation in order to save them from relegation.
Part 1: Solicitors at Match Fixing Case and Their Reletions with Turkish Football Federation:
Solicitors listed below are either directly or indirectly related to Turkish Football Federation and all people they defended were found guilty of match fixing. Most of those guilty people were also found guilty of being a member of a criminal gang that Fenerbahçe SK’s president Aziz Yıldırım was the head of…
1) Anıl Gürsoy Artan; Solicitor who defended Gençlerbirliği FC’s General Manager Zafer Önder İpek in match fixing case at court, is also a member of Turkish Football Federation’s Dispute Settlement Body ( Zafer Önder İpek was found guilty of match fixing in favour of Fenerbahçe SK )
2) Kaan Savruk; Solicitor who defended Gençlerbirliği FC’s trainer Cengiz Demirel in match fixing case at court, is also a member of Turkish Football Federation’s Dispute Settlement Body ( Cengiz Demirel was found guilty of match fixing in favour of Fenerbahçe SK )
3) Murat Balcı; Solicitor who defended İstanbul BB’s president Göksel Gümüşdağ in match fixing case at court, is the deputy chairman of Turkish Football Federation’s Arbitration Board. He handed over his client to his co-worker Cansu Şahin after being elected as deputy chairman.
4) Şükrü Kocuk; Solicitor who defended Giresunspor FC’s president Ömer Ülkü in match fixing case at court, is currently the president of Disciplinary Committee of the city of Giresun. ( Ömer Ülkü was found guilty of match fixing )
5) Sinem Oskay; Solicitor who defended Manisaspor’s president Kenan Yaralı in match fixing case at court, is a solicitor at Yunus Egemenoğlu’s company. Mr. Egemenoğlu was a member of Turkish Football Federation board at that time. ( Kenan Yarali was found guilty of match fixing in favour of Fenerbahçe SK)
6) Ali Rıza Dizdar; Solicitor who defended:
· Korcan Çelikay ( Sivasspor FC’s goal keeper, who was found guilty of match fixing in favour of Fenerbahçe SK )
· İskender Alın ( İstanbul BB’s player, who was found guilty of match fixing in favour of Beşiktaş JK )
· Serdar Kulbilge ( Gençlerbirliği FC’s goal keeper, who was found guilty of match fixing in favour of Fenerbahçe SK )
Ali Rıza Dizdar, is the the president of Disciplinary Committee of the city of İstanbul.
7) Nagehan Bardakçı; Solicitor who defended Fenerbahçe SK’s vice president Şekip Mosturoğlu and İstanbul BB’s president Göksel Gümüşdağ in match fixing case at court, is a solicitor at the company of Turkish Football Federation’s board member Faruk Öksüz. ( Şekip Mosturoğlu was found guilty of match fixing in favour of Fenerbahçe SK )
8) Ersan Şen; Solicitor who defended Fenerbahçe SK’s vice president İlhan Ekşioğlu in match fixing case at court, was the substitute member of Turkish Football Feredration’s Arbitration Body. ( İlhan Ekşioğlu was found guilty of match fixing in favour of Fenerbahçe SK )
9) Abdullah Kaya; Solicitor who defended Fenerbahçe SK’s president Aziz Yıldırım in match fixing case at court, used to be a representative at Turkish Football Federation. ( Aziz Yıldırım was found guilty of establishing and leading a criminal organisation and also found guilty of fixing several matches in favour of Fenerbahçe SK )
10) Atahan Sevimli; who defended Sami Dinç in match fixing case at court. Sami Dinç was accused of helping Şekip Mosturoğlu in order to fix a match. Atahan Sevimli is a student of İlhan Helvacı, who was the head of Turkish Football Federation Law Department.
11) Erdener Yurtcan; who defended Sami Dinç in match fixing case at court, was consultant at Turkish Football Federation Law Department.
Part 2 : Turkish Football Federation’s Committees
2-A) Ethical Committee:
As you know Ethical Committee was the organisation that prepared report about the match fixing case, which Professional Football Disciplinary Commitee then used as one of the aspects to make a decision regarding the case.
1) Burak Öder; Vice president of Turkish Football Federation Ethical Committee, who works at KOÇ University, the university owned by Fenerbahçe SK’s vice president Ali Koç. So as a worker of a person, whose team was involved in several match fixing activities, Mr. Öder prepered a report at the case.
2) Mert Kugay; member of Turkish Football Federation Ethical Committee, who worked for Beşiktaş JK as administrative manager at basketball department for 4 years and also taken to the trial at UEFA as vitness of Beşiktaş JK.
3) İlyas Doğan; a resigned member of Turkish Football Federation Ethical Committee, who made a stament regarding Supreme Court’s decision on match fixing case by saying that ‘ Supreme Court approved that there was match fixing in several games’. On the other hand Turkish Football Federation bent rules and regulations to protect match fixers and may be that is why Mr. Doğan resigned.
2-B) Professional Football Disciplinary Committee (PFDK):
This is the committee which invented the most bizarre excuse in football history in order to protect match fixing teams from relegation by deciding that ‘the match fixing organisations were not reflected on to the pitch’.
They then penalised some of the board members and players of various teams for match fixing attempts, but the funny thing was all matches ended as agreed by those people and somehowProfessional Football Disciplinary Committee think the individuals and clubs must be seperated. ( which reminds us UEFA’s resolution in fight against match fixing and claueses 5f and 5g)
1) Halit Fahri Gültekin; president of Proffesional Football Disciplinary Committee, is also a member of Fenerbahçe SK congress.
2) Memduh Oğuz; PFDK member, Turkish Football Federation Disciplinary Committee president Irfan Coşkun works as a solicitor at Memduh Oğuz’s law company.
3) Serdar Ölmez; PFDK member, visited members of match fixing organisation in prison and following these visits became the reporter of PFDK.
2-C) Arbitration Body:
1) Murat Balcı; Vice president at Arbitration Body. As explained earlier; Murat Balcı is Solicitor who defended İstanbul BB’s president Göksel Gümüşdağ in match fixing case at court, is the deputy chairman of Turkish Football Federation’s Arbitration Board. He handed over his client to his co-worker Cansu Şahin after being elected as deputy chairman.
2) The information regarding president of Arbitration Body; Engin Tuzcuoğlu, members; Uğur Mutlu and Taner Ünlü can be found in following topic. ( Sports Law Institution Association ).
Part 3: Sports Law Institution Association
This association need to be examined carefully as they are the core of match fixing establishment in Turkish football.
· Fenerbahçe SK’s vice president Şekip Mosturoğlu, who was found guilty of being a member of criminal organisation and match fixing, was one of the founders of this association alongside Sami Dinç, who helped Şekip Mosturoğlu to contact players to fix matches.
· Solicitors who are mebers of this association and also defended people at court in match fixing case are; Köksal Bayraktar ( defended Aziz Yıldırım ) and İsmail Tepecik.
· Engin Tuzcuoğlu; who is a member of this association is also president of Arbitration Body. Mr. Tuzcuoğlu announced his opinion regarding the match fixing case before Turkish Football Federation’s verdict on the case and somehow became president of Arbitration Body after revealing his opinion on the case. This clearly proves that he was brought to that position to help federation to protect match fixers.
Below is the list of solicitors who are related with match fixing case in one way or other, who also are members of Sports Law Institution Association:
1) Şekip Mosturoğlu; Fenerbahçe SK’s vice president, who was found guilty of being a member of criminal organisation and match fixing.
2) Sami Dinç; defendant in match fixing case.
3) Köksal Bayraktar; Solicitior of a defendant in match fixing case.
4) İsmail Tepecik; Solicitior of a defendant in match fixing case.
5) Engin Tuzcuoğlu; became president of Arbitration Body and helped to save match fixers from relegation.
6) Uğur Mutlu; member of Arbitration Body.
7) Taner Ünlü; member of Arbitration Body.
8) Zümrüt Yezdani; Substitude member of Arbitration Body.
9) Yunus Egemenoğlu; member of Turkish Football Federation board during Mehmet Ali Aydınlar’s precidency. If you remember, Mehmet Ali Aydınlar declared several times that; if it was not for him, Fenerbahçe SK would have definately been relegated . He said he had proteded Fenerbahçe SK against UEFA.
10) Harun Kaya; member of Turkish Football Federation’s of Dispute Settlement Body.
11) Faruk Baştürk; Turkish Footbal Federation Law Head Consultant.
12) İsmail Coşkun; member of Turkish Football Federation’s Dispute Settlement Body.
13) Levent Polat; Ex-Consultant of Turkish Football Federation for Law matters.
14) Emin Özkurt; Fenerbahçe SK’s solicitor.
15) Last, but not the least; CAS referees; Kısmet Erkiner and Türker Aslan…
Conclusion:
As known, since 3rd of July 2011;
· On 02.07.2012 Turkish Court found Fenerbahçe SK and Beşiktaş JK guilty of match fixing.
· On 10.06.2013 UEFA found Fenerbahçe SK and Beşiktaş JK guilty of match fixing.
· On 22.06.2013 UEFA Disciplinary Committee found Fenerbahçe SK and Beşiktaş JK guilty of match fixing.
· On 15.07.2013 UEFA Appeals Body found Fenerbahçe SK and Beşiktaş JK guilty of match fixing.
· On 28.08 2013 CAS found Fenerbahçe SK and Beşiktaş JK guilty of match fixing.
· On 17.01.2014 Turkish Supreme Court found Fenerbahçe SK and Beşiktaş JK guilty of match fixing.
It is also clear in UEFA’s, FIFA’s and Turkish Football Federation’s disciplinary produres that teams incolved in match fixing MUST BE RELEGATED, but Fenerbahçe SK, Beşiktaş JK and Sivasspor FC are still competing in a league that they are not supposed to be…
Let us remind you the verdicts given in Juventus FC, O. Valou FC and Pobeda FC case in past that all teams were relegated for match fixing offence, but the justice in Turkish football is being delayed and UEFA is in as much fault in this delay as Turkish Football Federation.
Finally we suggest Turkish Football Federation and UEFA to examine 11 pointed resolution that they signed in fight against match fixing and make sure these teams are relegated if they are honest about ‘Zero Tolerance’ and ‘FairPlay’…
Claueses 5f, 5g and 10 clearly states that our request is legitimate and neither Turkish Football Federation’s nor UEFA’s approach to this case is acceptable.
