“Government, resign!” In a Turkey forced into silence, the slightest criticism of the authorities finds a resounding echo. Especially when it is chanted by thousands of fiery supporters. After the double earthquake of February 6, which killed more than 45,000 people, several hundred Internet users and demonstrators were arrested by the authorities for expressing their anger at the mismanagement of relief. But, galvanized by the group effect and the relative anonymity of the stands, football fans are in turn making their voices heard against Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner, historic Fenerbahçe supporters are opposed to the government, and we’ve been feeling the anger rising for some time,” said Mustafa, a 20-year-old fan of the Istanbul club, who shouted his anger the first on February 26, taken over by the Fanatik of Besiktas, located in another district of the city.
Fenerbahçe, condemned to play its next match without supporters, however had to pay the price for its indiscipline. A decision that outraged its president, the wealthy Ali Koç, close to the Kemalist opposition party, the CHP. “It’s nice to feel supported, most clubs don’t have that chance,” said Mustafa. The intimidation of power and the presence of police in the stands, filming the supporters repeating the anti-Erdogan slogans, were not enough to calm the stands of Fenerbahçe and Besiktas, already in the foreground during the protest movement in 2013. ” Istanbul clubs have always managed to resist AKP attempts [NDLR : le parti d’Erdogan] to get their hands on the world of football”, underlines Tan Morgül, Turkish intellectual author of works on the culture of the round ball.
“The Turkish right has made sure to take control of football”
On the other hand, in the rest of Turkey, the Islamo-nationalists have succeeded in the last twenty years in carving out a virtual hegemony. “Since the 1980 coup, the Turkish right has been careful to control football, which is very popular in the country, and Erdogan has been particularly attentive to this by promoting the rise of loyal figures within the Turkish federation of this sport”, analyzes Tan Morgül. The president himself was a semi-professional footballer from 1969 to 1982 with the Kasimpasa club, his native district of Istanbul, whose stadium now bears his name. In 2014, he put on his boots again for the inauguration of the Basaksehir stadium, a newly created Istanbul club in an area inhabited by the conservative upper class. Carried by the support of the public authorities, financed by a holding company in the medical sector owned by the Minister of Health, he won the national championship in 2020, without however arousing the slightest popular fervor.
On March 5, the echo from the stands in Bursa became much more tragic: this club from western Turkey faced the Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, and the match gave rise to an outburst of racism. Harassed as soon as they entered the city, the Kurdish players were victims during the meeting of an uninterrupted rain of projectiles of all kinds – plastic bottles, but also knives and metal objects – which left two players unconscious on the lawn. The sports authorities, however, refused to interrupt the meeting.
In the stands, where the few Kurdish supporters suffered an explosion of physical violence, banners were unfurled bearing the image of mafia hitmen, close to the far right, and representing a white Toros, the brand of car used by the secret services and the extreme right in the 1990s to kidnap opponents.
“Explosions of racism sometimes take place in stadiums, but this was clearly an event planned and organized from outside the stands,” said Tan Morgül. A way to tense the atmosphere, while negotiations are taking place between the opposition and the pro-Kurdish party of the HDP on a possible anti-Erdogan coalition. “The increased use of threats and violence reflects the growing panic of power”, analyzes Tan Morgül. With the risk that Erdogan will be given a red card in the presidential election in May.