Erdogan and Europe Are Stuck in a Draw
ISTANBUL—Soccer fans from around the world navigated a logistical labyrinth to reach Ataturk Olympic Stadium on June 10 for the 2023 Champions League Final. During the annual tournament, organized by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA)—the governing body of European soccer—elite clubs compete to earn the title of best in Europe. The final is widely regarded as the most prestigious match in global club soccer.
This year’s final pit Manchester City against Inter Milan and—between the traffic, police barricades, and other security measures—some attendees reportedly walked up to five miles to attend. But they were overwhelmingly merry as they chanted, waved flags, riled up fellow supporters, and teased their opponents. After a tense showdown, Manchester City won 1-0.
The checkpoints were put in place by UEFA and Turkish law enforcement. UEFA was found primarily responsible for chaos at the 2022 Champions League final in Paris—when visiting fans were tear-gassed and pepper sprayed by local police at congested stadium entrances—and this year no one in event management wanted to take any chances. Turkish authorities and UEFA were also keen to project control after rumors that the match would be moved out of Turkey due to projected political unrest following the country’s pivotal election just weeks before, when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan secured an unprecedented third term in office.
Police search Manchester City fans outside Ataturk Olympic Stadium before the UEFA Champions League final match in Istanbul on June 10. Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images
Like many of Istanbul’s other cultural landmarks, the Olympic stadium is named after Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder and first president of the modern Turkish Republic, which turns 100 in October. The stadium was originally constructed as part of Istanbul’s failed bid for the 2008 Olympics and has served as a venue for one Champions League final in the past—the 2005 match between AC Milan and Liverpool.
This year’s final provided the newly reelected Erdogan with one of his first opportunities to face his European counterparts in government and civil society after liberally deploying anti-Western rhetoric throughout his presidential campaign. Prior to attending the final, Erdogan received both UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin and Gianni Infantino—the president of international soccer association FIFA—at Ataturk Airport, where they held closed-door talks.
From the stadium’s VIP box, flanked by United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan to his left and Ceferin to his right, Erdogan’s message was clear: He can play the geopolitical game his way and win. Turkey remains a transcontinental country—geographically, politically, and culturally. But while Erdogan’s regime has symbolically cleaved Turkey and Europe, there is no separating them. Just look at the Turkish leader, hosting the biggest night in European club soccer.
From left to right: Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA; Aleksander Ceferin, president of UEFA; Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey; Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates; Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, owner of Manchester City and the City Football Group; and Khaldoon Al Mubarak, chairman of Manchester City; stand in the VIP box at the UEFA Champions League final match at Ataturk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul on June 10. Michael Steele/Getty Images
For Turkey, there was a lot riding on this final. “Considering the fact that [Erdogan] has been facing an economic crisis for the last few years, I think it’s very important for him to give the image of exuberance, of growth, of success,” said Berk Esen, an assistant professor of political science at Istanbul’s Sabanci University. “Football is probably the most convenient venue for him to do that.” After all, Esen added, “We’re a football-loving nation.”
After World War II, Turkey began prioritizing friendly matches with European national teams to build closer relations to the West. “Encounters with European teams became a reflection of the national psyche, raising issues of competition, nationalism and respect,” researchers Ozgehan Senyuva and Sevecen Tunc wrote in their article “Turkey and the Europe of football,” published in a Sport in History journal issue titled The Origins and Birth of ‘l’Europe du football.’
Because of Turkey’s desire to align itself with the West, its bid for membership to UEFA in 1955 was a foreign-policy priority. The overture was warmly welcomed by UEFA’s executive committee, and it helped that the country had recently formed political, economic, and military alliances with Greece and Yugoslavia. But FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, opposed on the grounds that Turkey “belonged de facto and de jure” to Asia: Its capital, Ankara, is based on the Asian side of the country. (Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, straddles Europe and Asia.)
The Turkish Football Federation is currently pursuing the country’s sixth consecutive bid to host the UEFA European Football Championship, or Euro, in 2028 or 2032. (Unlike the Champions League, the Euro is a tournament of national—rather than club—teams.) In 2018, Turkey lost its bid to host the Euro 2024 tournament to Germany, with UEFA’s executive committee citing “lack of an action plan in the area of human rights” in its evaluation of Istanbul’s bid. It was the first time such a criterion had ever been applied.
For Ankara, all the above are familiar refrains from European institutions. Turkey has been campaigning for European Union membership for the past 36 years and counting, and its bids have been habitually blocked by other member states, which often cite their concern for human rights in the country.
Turkey’s human rights record has deteriorated considerably under Erdogan, particularly over the past decade, creating an openly hostile environment for independent media, human rights defenders, the LGBTQ+ community, Kurdish political activists, and government critics. But, as Philip Balboni recently wrote in Foreign Policy, many of the EU’s espoused concerns precede that backslide—and similar issues “did not stop a number of Central and Eastern European states such as the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia from obtaining EU status while Turkey’s petitions were repeatedly deferred.”
“This rhetoric of Erdogan taking Turkey away from Europe is missing one dimension: It’s not like Europe was waiting with open arms and trying to pull Turkey towards them,” Senyuva told Foreign Policy. Europe will “continue bashing Turkey and putting all the blame on [Erdogan] so they don’t have to discuss all the shortcomings on the European side, or the rise of the populist right wing in Europe and their anti-Turkish, xenophobic, and racist rhetoric.” Indeed, even when Turkey underwent considerable political and economic reforms, some European politicians still openly leaned into the argument of civilizational difference to justify leaving Turkey waiting at Europe’s doorstep.
In 2010, Turkey lost its bid to host Euro 2016 to France by a single vote—with Turkey’s place in Europe a key factor, the Associated Press reported. France’s then-President Nicolas Sarkozy, who had campaigned on his opposition to Turkey joining the EU (arguing it was not geographically a part of Europe), was in attendance at UEFA’s headquarters in Geneva to receive France’s win.
Though EU-Turkey accession negotiations officially froze in 2019, Ankara’s UEFA bids have not relented. Soccer is not an unfamiliar tool for Erdogan, who has linked the sport to politics since his own days as a soccer player in the 1970s and ‘80s, when he was active in youth politics while playing semi-professionally at clubs Erokspor, Camialti, and IETT Spor. (He won five titles as the captain of the latter.) As prime minister and now president, he has invested incredible resources into stadium construction in recent years. Recep Tayyip Erdogan Stadium opened in Istanbul in 2005.
While Erdogan’s confrontations with Europe may be read as intended to move the country further away from the West—and more freely toward authoritarian populism—he is unlikely to sever ties anytime soon, Esen told Foreign Policy. “Erdogan is really trying to carve out an autonomous space for himself in the international arena,” Esen said. “Sometimes that requires challenging the West directly; on other occasions, it requires stuff like this.”
Stuff, such as hosting his political peers to softly reenforce—as Erdogan put it—the “inseparability” of Turkey as a part of Europe, albeit on its own terms.
Galatasaray fans during the Turkish Super League match between Galatasaray and Fenerbahce at NEF Stadium in Istanbul on June 4. Ahmad Mora/Getty Images
In conversations with Foreign Policy, Turkish soccer fans across Istanbul on the weekend of the final said they saw the sport as Turkey’s irrefutable link to Europe. When asked whether he saw Turkey as a part of the continent, Eren Ozdemir, a supporter of Istanbul club Galatasaray, replied without hesitation: “Yes.”
“It’s a great tournament, known all over the world,” he said. “The whole world can see us hosting this great organization [and] promoting Turkey.” He saw nothing out of place with Turkey hosting the Champions League final.
Even though Ozdemir’s club wasn’t in this year’s final, he was still invested in the tournament for other reasons: Galatasaray recently won the Turkish Super League, securing its place in the qualifying rounds of next season’s Champions League. In Istanbul’s city center, flush with banners welcoming Manchester City and Inter Milan, red and yellow Galatasaray flags were just as ubiquitous. The melding of champions appeared seamless, and the association purposeful.
The proximity to prestige is the point: There is no arena more prestigious than European soccer. The next three teams in the Turkish Super League have also qualified to play in UEFA cups in the coming months.
As Turkey enters its centennial year, Erdogan has a reliable outlet to kindle nationalism in his deeply polarized country. In Turkey, “love for football is cross-cutting,” said Esen, who is also a Galatasaray fan. “It’s probably one of the few unifying themes.”
Whether Turkey’s soccer clubs—and national team—can start winning on the world stage is another question. According to Yusuf Atalay, an event volunteer working at one of the concession stands in the stadium on the night of the final, the answer is no. “Turkish teams almost can’t dream about the Champions League final,” he said. “In order to make it to the final, you have to have a good economy.”
Atalay responded affirmatively, if hesitantly, when asked whether Turkey was still a part of Europe. At the very least, it is when it comes to the beautiful game.
