Galatasary Takes Turkey Super Cup After Bizarre Fenerbahce Match – BNN Bloomberg
(Bloomberg) — Istanbul-based football club Fenerbahce withdrew from the Turkish Super Cup match on Sunday after conceding a goal within the first minute, giving its historical cross-city rival Galatasaray an easy win after a bizarre series of events in a season sullied by controversy.
Fenerbahce, which sent its under-19 team to play the match in the southeastern Turkish city of Urfa, quit about two minutes after the starting whistle, following a goal by Galatasaray’s Argentine center-forward Mauro Emanuel Icardi Rivero in the first minute.
Galatasary went on to field its substitutes for a practice match before the fans in the stadium and television audience after Fenerbahce withdrew. The Turkish Football Federation will later decide on the formal winner of the cup after evaluating the unusual circumstances.
Fenerbahce had previously planned to stage a protest or boycott the match. The club had authorized its board in the past week to take actions including not participating, or fielding its U-19 team if the match wasn’t postponed to a later date. Earlier in March, Fenerbahce had floated the idea of leaving the Super League, Turkey’s top football league, though decisions taken at an extraordinary general meeting on April 2 didn’t mention such a move.
Fenerbahce said it was considering withdrawing from the league over violence, after fans from rival club Trabzonspor attacked its players on the pitch last month.
Read more: Turkey’s Fenerbahce May Quit Soccer League Over Fan Violence
The Super Cup is an annual football match played between the previous season’s league champion and the Turkish Cup winner. The game was previously scheduled to be played in Riyadh in December, but that match was canceled after what the teams said was intervention by Saudi officials to prevent players from wearing t-shirts bearing the picture of modern Turkey’s secular founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Galatasaray is currently first in the league with 84 points. Fenerbahce is second with 82. The teams are listed on the Turkish stock exchange: Galatasary shares are up 7% this year and Fenerbahce’s have lost 6%. Both trail the 29% increase on the benchmark Borsa Istanbul 100 index.
Fenerbahce club president Ali Koc, the scion of Turkey’s wealthiest family, and Dursun Aydin Ozbek, a hotels magnate who’s president of Galatasaray, both attended the match in Urfa, which is about 950 kilometers (590 miles) away from Istanbul. Turkish Football Federation chief Mehmet Buyukeksi and Sports Minister Osman Askin Bak also traveled for the one-minute match.
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