An unusual situation occurred this Sunday in the final of the Turkish Super Cup. The players of the Fenerbahce club left the playing field one minute into the match against their eternal rival, Galatasaray, as a measure of protest for what the club considers a series of injustices against them, due to a very important match they will face this week. Before the team leaves the field, the Argentine Mauro Icardi scored 1-0 for the rival, result with which it was decided to suspend the match.
It all started in the week before the final. Fenerbahce requested that this important match be postponed to prepare with more time for the first leg of the Europa League quarterfinals that will be played next Thursday against Olympiacos, in Greece. Also had demanded that the definition against Galatasaray be directed by a foreign refereefor which he argued that he has recently received unfavorable treatment from Turkish judges.
By not getting answers, The club decided to board the under 19 youth players on the plane and no footballers from the first team, who traveled from Istanbul to Sanliurfa, in the southeast of Turkey and on the border with Syria, where the match was scheduled to be played. It was then that they went out onto the field to play the game and When only 50 seconds were played, Mauro Icardi established the score at 1-0 with a right cross. It was goal number 48 in 66 games for the Rosario player at the Istanbul club.
After the goal you can see how little by little the Fenerbahce footballers begin to leave the playing field, after a shower of whistles from fans of the rival team. You can also see the astonished look of some important leaders located in the audience. However, they were applauded by the Galatasaray players.
To go further, 20 minutes after the match was suspended, Galatasaray’s starters and substitutes played a training match while the fans screamed in the stands. They even celebrated the title both on the field and on social networks. On the other hand, the opposite happened, with a publication in which the reason for the decision was explained: “Today, when we go out on the field, it is not to win but to defend the truth. What we want to emphasize to summarize our attitude is this. At the service of Turkish sport with 117 years of history, not only in football but in all the branches in which we compete, we have thousands of trophies in the museum with the traces of sweat and work, feeling the national values of a country with its 30 million fans as the largest sports club in the world. “We will continue to stand strong today and tomorrow, as we did yesterday.”
Hours before the definition, Fenerbahce president Ali Koç had declared in a press conference organized before the match: “It is time to put things in their place in Turkish football. Our rebellion, our position in the Super Cup, has nothing to do with the date of the match not even with what happened in the last game away from home.” Furthermore, he stated that numerous leagues have “escaped” Fenerbahce in a dubious manner and denounced the existence of “a hidden network in Turkish football that, for years, has decided the development of the championship with the intermediation of the referees.” Thus, Fenerbahce fulfilled its threat to boycott the Turkish Super Cup final.
It is worth noting that the Turkish Football Federation (TFF), in addition, sanctioned two Fenerbahce players last Wednesday after the acts of violence that occurred at the end of the league match played in Trabzon, due to the attacks of a group of Tranzonspor fans who invaded the play field. It should be remembered that this duel was initially scheduled for December 29 in Riyadh, but was postponed at the last minute after the Saudi authorities refused to allow the footballers to wear political messages on their shirts.
Both teams, who are fighting for the league title with seven games remaining, had then agreed to warm up with t-shirts with the image of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, to celebrate the centenary of the Turkish Republic.