Ali Koç answers why he is running for office: 'We have a mission for clean football'

Fenerbahçe President Ali Koç met with the yellow-navy club's congress members in Mersin ahead of the elections.

Responding to the question, "You said they wouldn't let Fenerbahçe be champions while I was here, why are you running again?" Ali Koç said, "It has to do with the mission of clean football that my friends and I have. It has to do with Fenerbahçe's principles and stance. Whether it is good or bad if we compromise on that is a situation for the community to decide. In 7 years, we lost the championship on the final week three times at our own stadium. Was I the president or an executive during Haluk Ulusoy's 2006 setup? I was not. Therefore, it has nothing to do with my personality."

Ali Koç stated, "We are the ones who have fought this struggle the most. We are the ones who have done it in the most serious and sincere sense. We have reached the end of it. We will run again so that this struggle we have waged does not remain unfinished."

"MANY CLUBS WITHDREW THEIR SIGNATURES"

The president of the yellow-navy club explained, "What will happen next season? A lot will happen. A lot has already started to happen. After we called for a congress on April 2, 12 Süper Lig clubs started collecting signatures. Then dozens of clubs collected signatures. The signature had a symbolic value, to apply pressure. Even if you collect all the signatures, the regulations allow for a 6-month extension. We did this so that they would go to elections themselves. One way or another, they are going on the 18th. A lot of pressure was put on many clubs, and they had to withdraw their signatures. These days are about to pass."

"WE WILL FINISH THAT MISSION"

Saying, "You saw it in the municipal elections too, some things are changing," Ali Koç added, "People see that when football gets involved in politics, it causes harm rather than benefit. The issues we have brought to the agenda many times have started to be accepted not only by Fenerbahçe but collectively in Turkey. We will finish that mission."

Ali Koç continued his statements as follows:

"I can give you this guarantee: If the other candidate wins, have no doubt that we will provide all the support we can to unite the community.

We had an extraordinary season. Anyone who says 'Fenerbahçe had a bad season' is not well-intentioned.

We couldn't be champions. Even if we had reached 102 points, they would have made the opponent reach 103 points. We beat everyone, we beat our rivals, but we couldn't beat the system once again.

I want to thank our technical team and our squad for what they made us experience because they had an extraordinary season.

Do you know how many times the 90-point threshold has been exceeded to date? It was exceeded for two consecutive seasons at the end of the 1980s. Once by Fenerbahçe, once by Galatasaray. Other than that, there is no other season where 90 points were reached.

They received 4 red cards in Europe, but they saw only 1 red card in the entire Süper Lig season.

Personally, I am much more ambitious and much more faithful. You saw how good squads we built and how good coaches we brought in once the shackles were removed in the last 2 years, but somehow we couldn't beat the system.

Why am I hopeful? Fenerbahçe now has a very good squad. I say it is the best squad in history. This squad has achieved the best result in Fenerbahçe's history.

Hopefully, we need to add 3-4, or at most 5, players on top of this squad. For example, we had problems on the wings, we need to make additions.

Mario Branco and his team have been working on this since April. There is interest in players we currently do not want to let go of, and we have to evaluate those as well.

If we keep the squad and add 3-4 players on top, we will have a much stronger team.

If I knew that promising a championship would make it happen, I would promise it, but it doesn't work that way. Hopefully, let no one have any doubt that we will build a squad of such quality that it won't require a championship promise."

"WE WILL CRUSH THE BUGS"

Ali Koç concluded his speech with the words, "We will crush the bugs."