The Fenerbahce team is currently in St. Petersburg, where they are participating in a four-team tournament. Last summer, the team’s supporters chanted Vladimir Putin’s name during a match against Dynamo Kyiv.
Turkish football giant Fenerbahce traveled to Russia to play in a pre-season training tournament where they will face Zenit St. Petersburg, Red Star Belgrade and Neftc from Azerbaijan.
The Istanbul team Fenerbahce finished second in the Turkish league last season and won the Turkish Cup. Throughout history, the team has won the most Turkish championships, 28.
The Ukrainian club Kyiv Dynamo is dismayed by Fenerbahce’s decision. The Kyiv club in the bulletin Fenerbahce is described as a club “without honor or conscience”.
Russian teams are currently banned from Fifa and UEFA competitions. Dynamo Kyiv is surprised that this has not affected Fenerbahce’s decisions to go to the St. Petersburg tournament.
– The whole civilized world has gathered against aggression and mass murder, and your company accepts alms from the sponsors of terrorism.
The Kyiv press release mentions Russia’s largest natural gas and oil group Gazprom, whose “blood money has blinded Fenerbahce”.
– We are not afraid to tell the whole world: you are helping the killers to continue their bloody harvest on Ukrainian soil. You play with them and justify the greatest evil of the 21st century.
Last summer it was hot in Istanbul
Last summer, Fenerbahce and Kyiv Dynamo met in the Champions League qualifiers. Thousands of supporters of the Turkish home team shouted at the Russian president Vladimir Putin name after Dynamo had scored.
Among other things, the Ukrainian ambassador to Turkey Vasyl Bodnar and the Romanian head coach of the Kyiv team Mircea Lucescu were shocked after the match. Lucescu, who previously coached the Turkish national team, refused a press conference in protest.
– We will never understand the words of support for the Russian invaders who deliberately kill Ukrainians and destroy our country. Even football, which is so loved in Turkey, has its limits, said Ambassador Bodnar.
On the spot from the match tweeted among other things, a football journalist Nico Cantor.
Fenerbahce announced after the match that the fans’ actions “did not represent the club or its attitude in any way”. As punishment, the European football association Uefa gave the club a fine of 50,000 euros and a partial exclusion from the stands for the next Euro match.
– When the fans shouted the name of the killer country, your club was silent. Now it is clear why, Kyivan Dynamo is now criticizing Fenerbahce in its press release.
Also Edin Dzeko in St. Petersburg
An interesting angle in the case is also the fact that Bosnia-Herzegovina, which played in the same Nations League group as Finland, said in the fall of 2022 that they had agreed on a training match in St. Petersburg against the Russian national team.
Bosnian star players Miralem Pjanic and Edin Dzeko were satisfied with the decision. Among other things, Dzeko announced that the match would be a bad decision.
– I have told the football association about it. I stand by the Ukrainians in these difficult times, Dzeko commented to the local media.
Soon, the Bosnia-Herzegovina Football Association announced that the match has been postponed “to a later date”. More precisely, the association did not inform about the cancellation of the match or the new time.
Now, however, Dzeko had to travel to St. Petersburg. In June, he moved to Fenerbahce on a two-year contract.
Top player Dzeko, 37, has represented Wolfsburg, Manchester City and most recently Inter in his long career. Dzeko has celebrated championships in both Germany and England. With 64 hits, he is Bosnia-Herzegovina’s all-time top scorer.
Zelenskyi visited Turkey on Friday
On the foreign policy level, the president of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has tried to maintain good relations with the President of Ukraine to Volodymyr Zelenskyi that of Vladimir Putin, and tried to act as a mediator to end the war.
Zelenskyi recently visited Istanbul. Erdoğan, who hosted the meeting, stated, among other things, that Ukraine deserves its place in NATO.
At the same time, Erdoğan also announced that Putin will visit Turkey in August. Putin’s visit would be his first to Turkey or a NATO country since Russia launched its full-scale war of aggression in Ukraine in February 2022.
In March, an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) was issued for Putin. Countries that have signed and ratified the Constitution are obliged to arrest a person who has received an arrest warrant. Turkey has not signed the ICC Statute.