Lunar: Fenerbahçe U19s withdraw from the Turkish Super Cup, Galatasaray plays… against their replacements

Fenerbahçe players left the field in the third minute of the Turkish Super Cup against Galatasaray on Sunday evening to denounce what they consider to be injustices against their club. The management of the Istanbul club had decided, for the same reasons, to start eleven young people from its under-19 team for this match.

After conceding a goal in the first minute of play, the players left the pitch, ending the match. Sacred, Galatasaray then played a match between its starters and their substitutes, just to offer football to the public. A lunar situation.

Fenerbahçe denounces “an occult network in Turkish football”

“It is time for the clocks of Turkish football to be reset,” declared Fenerbahçe president Ali Koç during a press conference organized before the match, which began at 9:30 p.m. (6:30 p.m. GMT) in Sanliurfa ( South East). Affirming that too many league titles have “eluded” Fenerbahçe in a dubious manner, Ali Koç denounced the existence of a “hidden network in Turkish football for years” which, he asserts, “decides the course of the championship through the referees”.

Before the match, Fenerbahçe had requested that a foreign referee officiate the Super Cup, and had also requested its postponement due to the quarter-final of the Europa Conference League which it must play on Thursday against Olympiakos. The Turkish Football Federation, which imposed a match ban on two Fenerbahçe players on Wednesday after violence occurred during a pitch invasion in Trabzon after a championship match, rejected both requests. Galatasaray, for its part, had fielded its first team.

The Turkish Super Cup was initially scheduled for December 29 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, but the meeting was postponed at the last minute after Saudi organizers refused to allow players to wear jerseys with political slogans. The two teams wanted to warm up with jerseys bearing the image of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, to celebrate the centenary of the Turkish Republic.