Turkey‘s football world was thrust into disarray on Tuesday as a club president, prominently considered for the mayoral role in Ankara, engaged in a physical altercation with a referee during a match.
The top-tier Super Lig took an indefinite hiatus as a court ordered pre-trial detention for Ankaragucu club president Faruk Koca and two individuals, charged with “injuring and threatening a public official.”Visual
documentation of Monday night’s episode revealed Koca, accompanied by a group of men, charging onto the pitch and landing a punch on referee Halil Umut Meler moments after he concluded the match with the final whistle.
Koca seemed visibly angered at Meler for awarding a stoppage-time penalty kick, enabling visiting Caykur Rizespor to secure a 1-1 draw and depart the capital.
The chaotic sequence of events involved Meler falling to the ground, where he was kicked multiple times in the ensuing melee.
Minutes later, the 37-year-old match official was captured standing, revealing a black eye that had swollen the left side of his face.
Following his immediate hospitalization, he issued a statement asserting that Koca had made threats on his life.
‘Faruk Koca punched me under my left eye and I fell to the ground. While I was on the ground, they kicked my face and other parts of my body many times,’ Meler said in a statement.
‘Faruk Koca told me and my fellow referees: ‘I will finish you’. Addressing me in particular, he said: ‘I will kill you’.’
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Koca admitted to Beyaz TV immediately after the match that he had momentarily lost control.
‘My brain went crazy,’ Koca said.
‘My eyesight blacked out! I don’t remember what I did!’
The incident pushed all other events off the front pages of the main newspapers in a nation where football passions run deep — and are often politically linked.
The Turkish Football Federation condemned “this vile attack” and suspended all matches until further notice.
Furthermore, it sparked an appeal for calm from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a former football player whose love for the game has contributed to the success of major Turkish clubs.
‘Sports means peace and brotherhood. Sport is incompatible with violence,’ he said in a social media statement.
The Turkish interior ministry later released a video showing Erdogan placing a call to Meler in his hospital bed.
‘We are so deeply sorry and we wish you a speedy recovery,’ Erdogan told the injured referee in the clip.
‘I told all our friends, my interior minister, my justice minister and all the other relevant friends to do what is necessary,’ Erdogan said.
The fervor of Turkish football is well-known, with sporadic incidents of violence adding to its dynamic nature.
19 people were briefly arrested by a Turkish court in relation to a brawl that erupted during a second-division match in November of the previous year.
Bursaspor, competing in the second division, played seven matches earlier this year in an empty stadium due to another incident where fans chanted anti-Kurdish slogans.
Vast numbers of fans associated with Turkish clubs actively embrace various social causes, contributing significantly to the dynamic of the country’s political environment.
The 2013 youth-driven protests witnessed football supporters playing a fundamental role, constituting the first notable challenge to Erdogan’s socially conservative government.