Fenerbahce chairman grateful for female fans support in historic match
President of Fenerbahce, Aziz Yildirim, has thanked the Fenerbahce fans for their show of support to the chairman during the historic ‘women’s only’ match against Manisaspor.
Yildirim is currently in prison while investigations continue into the match fixing scandal that has rocked Turkish football and many of the crowd wore t-shirts featuring the jailed chairman’s face as a show of support during these tough times for Fenerbahce.
The chairman released a statement that said: “I saw the long queues you waited in to get a ticket. I saw the young people, children and women donning the team’s colours. I heard you all saying Fenerbahce and I felt your great support for Fenerbahce. I thank our fans for allowing me to feel these feelings.”
The Turkish Football Federation had ruled that only women and children under 12 would be permitted to attend games for free for teams that had been found guilty of crowd trouble. This ground breaking match saw over 41,000 fans turn up at the Sukru Saracoglu stadium to witness a football match played in a unique environment. It is hoped that the new rules will curb football violence for good in Turkey.
Following the corruption in Turkish football scandal, Turkish football is currently in a rebuilding period to clean up the league.
