Gündeme dair

The Silence of the Lambs: Football Leaks

10 Aralık 2018 Pazartesi

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There is a topic that keeps the world’s agenda busy but the press of our country is still silent. It is highly interesting for the stakeholders of football. Mr. Mustafa Cengiz, the President of Galatasaray Sports Club, also referred to this issues in his recent press conference.

Yes, “Football Leaks” documents and claims within, have shaken the football world and documented many corruption cases. Presidents, managers, clubs and footballers …

Yıldırım Demirören, who has always been a controversial figure with what he has done and he did not since his election to the President of the Turkish Football Federation, is now in the centre of the allegations and his name is one of the most talked in connection with Football Leaks documents in Europe nowadays. Other stakeholder of the issue is Ahmet Bulut, who brought his name back to Europe with the transfer of world-renowned manager Jorge Mendes and Arda Turan to Barcelona.

Yıldırım Demirören has entered to the world of football directly from the kitchen, when he was selected as the Chairman of Besiktas Gymnastics Club, the post materialised with the honourable names and characters of Süleyman Seba and Hakkı “The Father”, and then presided the club over many years before his elections to TFF Presidency.

Ahmet Bulut has developed a reputation as the manager of the high-stake names such as Emre Belözoğlu and Okan Buruk. His peak was Arda Turan’s transfer to Barcelona, and one of his most prominent transfer (this time with its details and process) was the transfer of Arda Turan to Başakşehir. There are several success stories in these two transfers: Transferring a Turkish footballer to Barcelona and then reversing the transfer by substantially contributing to Barcelona, whose salary was serious inversely proportional to the salary structure in Barcelona’s squad then again brought to Turkey to contribute to Barcelona. Both huge success stories.

Mendes is a worldwide famous football manager.

Allegations and published documents provides a lot of publicity to these three names.

When we scanned the past for a while, in order to refresh our memories, we came up with some prominent names and their discourses. The first of these is the world-famous football man Lothar Matthaeus. Matthaeus and Beşiktaş reached to an understanding for coaching in principle, then suddenly Demirören, who was the president of Besiktas at that time, changed his mind and called off the agreement: “Believe me, I used to think a lot of good things about Turkey and Turkish people. I have a lot of Turkish friends. But my ideas about your country changed after what the “gentleman” president did to me. I’ve understood better now what does it means to make a promise for him. We met with Vice President Kıvanç Oktay in Milan and drafted a protocol. Then Demirören called for a meeting. We came together in Vienna. In this meeting, he promised me the biggest mansion in Istanbul, the most expensive car, an English school that my children would visit and the full authority of the team. These are my words to Demirören; a man may be rich, but he cannot forget that there are things in life that cannot be bought with money. I wish him and his team success. One day, I will surely run a team in Turkey, which will not be Besiktas. Actually, this way has been maybe better. Apparently, these problems would come out most probably after the agreement.

Matthaeus also talked about his observations and feelings about Demirören. Perhaps these are bitter words after a failed agreement… However, he was also adding some more words on the popular people nowadays: “ They agreed with Okan Buruk. But everybody should know that, Okan Buruk’s manager is the boss of the management company, where Ahmet Bulut works. Everybody knows that

the work of this company and people are not welcomed in the European market. Especially the manager Ahmet Bulut is a very dangerous person. These were the statements made by Matthaeus at that time.

There are some relevant statements on http://theblacksea.eu:

Yıldırım Demirören came down from the presidency of Beşiktaş on 27 February 2012, leaving behind an unprecedented stack of debt. The club’s financial situation was awful: 200m euros in debt, a 160m- euro budget deficit, and unpaid bills growing up like a mountain. Immediately after Demirören’s departure, the club has been banned from the championships because of noncompliance with the Financial Fair Play regulations of UEFA and was also involved in match fixing events.

One of the reasons of the debt swamp in Beşiktaş was the suspicious agreements made between Demirören and Portuguese manager Jorge Mendes’s company, Gestifute, whose bank account is located in Switzerland. In a short period of six months between 2010 and 2011, Gestifute received a 6m euros commission in exchange for the players he sold to Besiktas during Demirören’s presidency. According to our calculations, the total cost of the players participating in the team was over 60 million euros. Football Leaks documents reveal that manager Ahmet Bulut also played a key role as a mediator during these agreements. Experts say that ”It is also problematic that the name of Bulut is not written anywhere, and the fact that the transfer conversations were not reported to the football federation.

We’ve all read these statements, we all know.

Let’s take a look at the Football Leaks documents, which are sensational, and the interviews and statements given to the press when there was no scandal at that time:

Sergen Yalçın, one of the flagrant figures of the Besiktas community, stated in the TRT Spor channel on 15.09.2014: “Somebody should investigate the trio who engineered Demba Ba and Gökhan Töre transfers. Let me tell you my guess on why Besiktas did not get o full back on the right. There were no right-backs on Ahmet Bulut’s portfolio. Last year, there was only one full back on Ahmet Bulut’s list consists of 35 players. Guess what, Besiktas went and asked for that right back! Ahmet Bulut, Jorge Mendes and Yıldırım Demirören were the people who made Besiktas head down with the transfers like Guti, Ricardinho, and similar. Yes, Sergen Yalçın clearly announced these three names in 2014; Demirören-Mendes-Cloud.

The current president of Besiktas Istanbul, Fikret Orman, who was connected to the same channel a week later, responded to Sergen Yalçın as follows: When the Portuguese went, there are two names left. Demba Ba’s manager was not Ahmet Bulut and he did not make that transfer. Bulut helped us is transfer procedures of Demba, but he didn’t ask any money from us.

Fikret Orman continued: “Ahmet Bulut and his partner Mendes had 17 players in Beşiktaş, when I get the chair. Gökhan Töre and Cenk are the players from their company as of now. When the 5 Portuguese went, only 2 players remained playing for Besiktas”.

Sinan Vardar declares the following in his article at https://www.kartalhaber.com:

“From whence we came and to where we are now! When I was working as a Board Member in DEMİRÖREN administration, I witnessed how an old giant directly drifted into debt swamp. I didn’t even acquit my own management. The Chairman of the Board, Mr. Yalçın Karadeniz was also a witness.

At that time, I stated that the club’s financial status should be examined. At a board meeting, a band of 2-3 people, told us that a loan of 70 million dollars was taken like they were granting us this information. I hold the floor and said, “OK then, let’s settle our debts with this loan. We are not heading to a good direction at all”.

The response from the President and his close friends were; ”Of course, my brother Sinan this money will close the debts with interes”. This loan was spent with a great extravagance, like eating pareras in Spain. The president then said “We are setting up a fund with Manager Mendes. After today, we’ll only get players from this fund”.

And the partner of Mendes, as always, was Ahmet Bulut at that time. Mr. Fikret Orman, who opposed the Demirören administration, expressed that the debts had risen so much that if he was the president, he would never admit Ahmet Bulut and Mendes from the door of the club.

Now I have a photograph taken in my hand. Ahmet Bulut, the President (Fikret Orman), winding around with him, and makes the President eat a delicious cake.

And I am amazed; in that photo you can see Şükrü Yazıcı, who was first the right hand of Haluk Ulusoy, then Yıldırım Demirören and now Fikret Orman. Besiktas’s debt in the reign of Fikret Orman has increased fivefold. Apparently, Club owes to Manager Bulut over 30 million TL, he was given bonds for this debt. It is not even clear what Bulut might have taken from hand (without any accounting record). I wanted to humbly share this topic with you.

Sinan Vardar makes clear that the problem is continuing and he is uncomfortable with the rapprochement between Fikret Orman and Ahmet Bulut while the club owes considerably to Ahmet Bulut.

In the same program, Fikret Orman’s words drew attention as well: Somebody caused a perception that as if we held a company jointly with Ahmet Bulut and wasting the money of Beşiktaş. In the transfer of Demba Ba, Ahmet Bulut only helped us in the negotiations with Chelsea. Demba’s manager is somebody else. We paid only 5 percent to Ahmet Bulut for the transfer of Gökhan Töre. Before me, he was paid a fee of 22 percent of Querasma’s and 20 percent of Almedia’s transfer totals.

Fikret Orman, who stated that he was broken to the words of Sergen Yalçın, continues: I was tied to the broadcast because it broke me. We are doing this service with our dignity. I worked very hard to make the transfers by myself. In some negotiations, Ahmet Nur Çebi was also with me. I don’t care about your views on Ahmet Bulut. I’m not his lawyer, he can answer them himself. The managers of Beşiktaş players are always different. A manager at the club has maximum 3 players. Gökhan Töre was brought us in the first year by Ahmet Bulut. Again, if he has a player we like, we work with him again. We do not have any problem for getting his players.

After this declaration Erman Toroğlu asks: No one knew that Ahmet Bulut had 17 players in Beşiktaş. Isn’t it a bit odd to get so many players from a single manager?

Turkish football has been experiencing difficulties in distribution of ethics and justice recently.

There are Football Leaks documents abroad and we have archives and memories here in Turkey.

The allegations, which shook the European football deeply, against the president of federation for a country that sent two teams to the Champions League are quite striking. It is even more striking that the former President of one of the team in this platform, where billions of Euro sponsorship revenues have circulating, have become president of the TFF without any obstacles.

And as our last points, we would like to know:

_{• Is lack of transparency of the football community was one of the reasons for our loss of Euro 2024}against Germany?

• If the documents mentioned are correct – as it was pointed out several times in the interviews – how and with whom will we correct the damages and the corrupted image of our football?

• What are the implications of these documents and speeches in the short, medium and long term?

• Nobody carries this scandal to its headlines except the AMK newspaper. Can we presume that Media’s pretending of the dead in this regard is some kind of support to the owners of the allegations in the middle?

• How will the Football Leaks documents, which touch on everyone from the economy to the television community, from the football world to the press sector, will affect these organisations the coming period?

• As stated by the President of Galatasaray Sports Club Mr. Mustafa Cengiz, why is this scandal not on the agenda of the country?

• We wonder if the people in question will answer these claims.

We have tried to put forward a series of events that happened in front of our eyes, somehow we witnessed recently, but could not have intervened or even we have already forgotten.

It is not easy to guess what the results of such scandals, if they were disclosed in another country? It is not easy to guess, but we all know the circumstances of the people we know ..

We will be close followers of this issue…

We thank Mr. Zeynep Özkalay and Ali Güvenç Kiraz for their support.

Thank you for your translation, Gökhan Karahan.

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