Sports commentator Oktay Haluk Doğan evaluates the Super Cup crisis for 12punto: What will be the fate of the TFF?

THE SUPER CUP AND TURKISH FOOTBALL

In the last few months, Turkish football has once again been associated with scandals. First, there was the incident involving Halil Umut Meler, and while that was still fresh, there was the playing with the sensitivities of the country's people in Saudi Arabia, followed by the refusal of the two clubs to participate.

The TFF's state of mental confusion from the very beginning pitted politics against each other, as it always does. The country was suddenly divided between those who approved and those who did not, and the issue was turned into a matter of national survival. Those who praised and those who lynched formed their own camps.

When I look at the event from my own perspective, it brought very thought-provoking things to mind.

Before the TFF broadcasting tender, with the desire to heat up the competition between Qatar and the Saudis, and under the instructions of the politics that brought them there, they forced the teams into something that was not accepted by the country from the very beginning.

On top of that, they could not maintain a stance until the last moment regarding the attacks on the country's founding values.

The clear stance of the two clubs caused Saudi Arabia, which I have always viewed coldly, to play with fire and get its hands burned. I wholeheartedly congratulate our clubs for their stance.

Although the TFF, which wants to shift the blame, knows that this cup could be played with rules determined between the two countries outside of FIFA instructions, it is clear that their attempt to declare Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray as scapegoats is an effort to achieve the result they want.

But if we play devil's advocate here, could there be a plan regarding the regime change that the political authority wants to create in our country in the future? Could they have wanted to test these sensitivities, which are the biggest obstacle to these changes, through the TFF? I hope that is not the case, and I want to be optimistic here.

Independently of these, Turkish football and those who claim to manage it come to that office through a method determined by political will with management lists, just like previous federation presidents.

Because of the TFF, whose every decision is debated and which is in the midst of errors every week, we are witnessing a football world where things other than football on the pitch are discussed. For this reason, because those who manage football forget their real duties and turn it into a trial-and-error board where every decision is replaced by a new one, we have a bad league that has no brand value despite the expenditures that lead clubs to ruin on a European scale, and where there are only momentary successes.

Turkish football, where attempts are made to handle business like a bad merchant with orders and instructions, is rolling along with all its stakeholders disconnected from each other, hostile to each other, and in an understanding of 'might makes right'.

The TFF and its management, which cause these, consider it a skill to raise their voices in every scandal by pointing fingers at everyone and saying, 'Everyone is guilty, I am as pure as driven snow.'

Although the TFF is aware that it has hit a wall, it is experiencing a situation that is hanging by a thread, waiting for the will that brought it to that position to say 'go away,' and it has become an insignificant institution in the eyes of the clubs, the press, and the public. It needs to change.

But will this be a solution? That is also a big question mark.

As long as this structure and mentality do not change in the TFF, which is in a supposedly autonomous position, one will come and another will go, the newcomer will make you miss the predecessor, and the loser will be Turkish football and its reputation.

I do not think the TFF, which should leave as soon as possible, will last until the tournament in Germany. Let's keep watching.

January 4, 2024