Why can’t Turkey qualify for the World Cup?
With so much political, social, and financial capital invested in its national squad, why can’t Turkey qualify for a World Cup? Continue reading Why can’t Turkey qualify for the World Cup?
Tag: Turkish football
Election day for a beleaguered Turkish soccer power
Fenerbahce is widely considered Turkey’s wealthiest, most politically important club, with millions of fans and a history of success. But the team is beleaguered, on and off the field. Can a challenger unseat the club’s powerful president? Continue reading Election day for a beleaguered Turkish soccer power
Understanding authoritarianism through soccer
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was once an athlete. Now, he uses sport for his own purposes—even as fans use it to express dissent. Continue reading Understanding authoritarianism through soccer
Love songs of Turkish football
There is often also a poetic intensity to the love expressed in Turkish football songs. Many are suffused with longing and infatuation. Continue reading Love songs of Turkish football
Illicit football: The Black Stockings
Photographs of Fuat Husnu Kayacan show him dressed impeccably in an Ottoman tunic and fez, sporting a sharply waxed moustache, looking every bit a young man of the establishment. He attended a military school and his father was an admiral in the Ottoman navy. But Fuat Husnu was also a subversive, a criminal: an illicit footballer. Click here to read the rest of this article published … Continue reading Illicit football: The Black Stockings
Dinamo Mesken: Turkish Football as a Political Football
IN “DINAMO MESKEN,” a multimedia exhibition at Ankara’s SALT Ulus gallery, Turkish artist Ege Berensel tells the story of an amateur football club dragged into Turkey’s political turmoil of the late 1970s. Armed groups of the left and right fought and killed one another. The escalating conflict brought military repression and a traumatic denouement. Berensel’s research, carried out over more than five years and displayed … Continue reading Dinamo Mesken: Turkish Football as a Political Football
Writing by Patrick Keddie 