We need to transfer fans to Beşiktaş!

The last branch I am holding onto is about to break…

I am so afraid that I will fall.

We have lost so much… Peace, a sense of belonging, unity, tolerance, love…

Degradation has permeated our cells in every area of life. Everything has been hollowed out; all emotions are fake, all allegiances are fake.

Just as in Nasreddin Hodja’s saying, “He who pays the piper calls the tune,” we stand by those who pay, by those who are powerful. But we have no idea why we belong there.

I said, “The last branch I am holding onto is about to break, I am afraid,” so let me tell you about that branch…

Everyone has something they are happy to belong to. Some are soldiers of a political party, some of an ideology, some of a professional association, some of a union… I am a soldier of a culture.

The Beşiktaş community, to which I feel such a sense of belonging that I named my son Kartal…

So why did I become a Beşiktaş fan? Why do I feel like I belong here so much? Why did I dedicate myself to Beşiktaş enough to name my child after the symbol of this community?

Every team naturally has its own values, and every team’s fans have their own reasons… Let me speak for myself: Even if it has been hollowed out today, there is a stance called the “Beşiktaş stance.” One that dates back to the years it was founded… There is a neighborhood culture, one that contains history, honor, and a sense of unity…

It is not just a community that shouts “Shoulder to shoulder” as a slogan while walking down the tree-lined road together; it is a community that truly stands shoulder to shoulder during every social event…

I will not go on and on praising Beşiktaş here. My main issue is that the profile of the fan—who threw scarves for children to stay warm during the Van earthquake, who threw toys for them and was penalized for it, who supported their team through thick and thin by saying, “We are with you whether you win or lose”—has changed. That is what saddens me…

Industrial football is, of course, success-oriented. But we didn’t love it just to be happy, did we…

We saw Beşiktaş on a rainy day in its black-and-white striped jersey, and we were instantly captivated and fell in love. It was the meaning of life, wasn’t it…

Wasn’t the first poem we wrote to the girl we loved the same poem we memorized and poured our love into while tears streamed down our faces for Beşiktaş? In the letter we handed to our beloved with trembling hands, hadn’t we written, “You are what I see in the mirrors, you are the one I cry and laugh for, you are the Gordian knot they cannot untie”? Wasn’t the only way we knew how to express our love to make them feel the same unconditional, unquestioning love we felt?

Wasn’t being a Beşiktaş fan something like that?

So why is this branch I am holding onto breaking now? What happened that the fan profile has changed so much?

Beşiktaş fans are a mirror of society. And today, when we look into that mirror, you see everything that the AKP government, in power for over 20 years, has created in Turkey reflected in the Beşiktaş fans!

It is a reflection of a mentality that doesn’t know why it belongs to something, that blindly forgets its values for success and wealth, that doesn’t value art or artists, that says “it happened because we wanted it to, no matter what happens to others,” and that wants those who are not like us to disappear…

Administrations come and go… Administrations change, make mistakes, and bury the club in debt. Managers might project a different profile than the fan base just to be in the spotlight. But Beşiktaş fans cannot be this alienated from their club, their greatest love, and the culture they belong to.

I have been talking for weeks with my nephew, whom I hold by the hand and take to matches, and for whom I even bought a black-and-white Beşiktaş-crested onesie the day he was born… I told him, “What Beşiktaş needs this transfer season is neither a left winger nor a world-famous center-back.” I told him that what Beşiktaş actually needs to transfer is the old Beşiktaş fan.

I truly think so. What Beşiktaş needs is for the current fan base—who are never satisfied with anything, who expect daily success, and who are so mindless that they call the glorious Beşiktaş jersey that we kiss, cherish, and keep by our bedside “trash”—to leave, and for the real Beşiktaş fans to fill the stands.

It is not that far off… I am talking about the fans who, in the recent past, were not afraid when they were trailing by a large margin in the first half against Benfica, who fired up the team players, called them to the stands to applaud them before they even went to the locker room, and made us watch a completely different Eagle in the second half.

Is it the Beşiktaş spirit not to support Sergen Yalçın, who grew up in the youth academy, experienced championships, brought championships as a coach, but left the club due to the management mistakes I just mentioned, and returned to the club during such a difficult period? The trendy Beşiktaş fan phrase of recent days is to label them “trash” and express distrust in a season that hasn’t even started yet…

Calling the newly transferred players “trash” in addition to the players already on the roster… Yes, you want success, you want world stars. But this has never been the character of Beşiktaş!

In the years Beşiktaş dominated the league, it won consecutive championships with players from the youth academy like Metin, Ali, Feyyaz, Rıza, Ulvi, and Kadir. It set ten-zero records with the young players it raised from its own academy. It won championships with modest squads. Great successes came with players who had a sense of belonging.

It is still the beginning of the league… 22 players were sent away; in a period where it is harder to send players than to bring them in, getting rid of the squad from the unsuccessful period that no one liked, the new management managed to get rid of the players they had. Even this is a big deal.

But what the new Beşiktaş fan profile expects is to have betting advertisements on their backs… What the new Beşiktaş fan expects is to see support from the federation and the referees… The “success at any cost” mentality…

That is why I lament that the last branch we are holding onto is about to break.

One of the rare things in this country that we are not ashamed to belong to is belonging to Beşiktaş… Please, do not let this value, which we are honored to belong to, rot like all the other rotting values. And if you don’t know what it means to be a Beşiktaş fan, the Beşiktaş stance, or the history of Beşiktaş, open it up and read.

Look at how it reacted to which events. The day you understand that its colors are pure white and pitch black, that nothing else is mixed into it, and that it has a clear stance… The success you miss will also come by supporting Beşiktaş.

The point is; it is about fighting shoulder to shoulder in difficult times. Beşiktaş has a match today… A brand new team will appear before its fans at Dolmabahçe. I am calling out to the fans who will go to the stadium: even if you don’t know those days, watch old videos, ask your older brothers and fathers what it means to be a Beşiktaş fan… Go to the match like that…