Shocking remarks from Ali Palabıyık, who has retired from refereeing!

Ali Palabıyık, who has retired from refereeing, made highly controversial statements regarding the Turkish Football Federation and referees during a live broadcast on Habertürk.

Here are Ali Palabıyık's statements...

'Referees who made mistakes continued and continue to perform their duties. Names like me, who made a specific mistake, were subjected to long periods of being benched, perhaps because we were not liked by the president. I had a one-on-one meeting with Mehmet Büyükekşi. He told me clearly, 'I don't trust you.' He said that I made intentional mistakes on the pitch. The TFF President is taking such an approach toward a FIFA referee. And this is happening while the season is ongoing. He told me many things. Let me not repeat what he said here. I told him that if he wanted, I would write my resignation immediately if he gave me a piece of paper. He said, 'There is no need for such a thing, continue.' I asked, 'You are not assigning matches, how am I supposed to continue?' He said that no matches would be assigned.

At the TFF, the final decision is always made by the president. The Central Referee Board (MHK) makes the assignments and takes them to the TFF. Referees are announced to the press with the TFF's signature. I have never seen or heard of a person who previously served as president at the TFF being so involved in assignments.

This incident caused an uproar throughout Turkey. Our greatest desire is to prevent this violence that we experience in health, sports, and education. For the last 2-3 days, the TFF and referees were in meetings. A decision was made to return to matches from this meeting. I heard that the TFF provided every kind of assurance.

Everyone's expectation was that matches would not be played for 2-3 weeks. No one expected such a decision. I think the messages given by political leaders were influential in this. Football needs to continue. It is one of the biggest sectors in the country based on finances. For this, referees are also needed. We hope that the culprits receive the necessary punishments.

Büyükekşi made a statement that the person who carried out the attack was actually a very good person. The TFF President has mobbed most referees. They continue the attitude they adopted toward me against many other referees. I heard that the referees told Büyükekşi at the meeting, 'We do not trust you.'

Everyone should look at themselves. 'What kind of mistakes did we make, how did we get here,' these should be considered. Why were the mentioned sports programs not intervened with; did such an incident have to happen for an intervention?

The TFF and MHK apply great pressure on referees after statements made by clubs following matches. They don't even make eye contact with you, and they cause grouping within the referee community. Even after a position where everyone admitted there was a mistake, some of our colleagues could still get matches the following weekend.

We really wanted the VAR system to come. The VAR issue has become gangrenous in Turkey. The problem is growing day by day. Unless we increase the training level of VAR referees, it is difficult to continue this. The VAR referee staff is limited. The mistakes in the recent period have become unbelievable; we cannot make sense of them. During my time in office, there were problems with image quality. I think they have fixed it now. There are 15-16 people in the penalty area during corners; it is not easy to make a decision. The VAR room is a tunnel, there is no light there. You have to make a decision in a hurry.'