It is high time for VAR in academia too!!!!

As in many countries around the world, football is one of the most followed and popular sports in Turkey.

After the 'Sultans of the Net', volleyball has also caught the attention of our public. I congratulate our friends. The honor, pride, and success they brought to our country made us all proud and caused grown men to shed tears of joy. 

Still, football has a special place. 

It is a classless and limitless space where the poor and the rich meet, respect each other, and curse at each other. 

It is a sport that children from poor neighborhoods can also freely enter. 

For basketball, you need a court, a hoop, and a relatively expensive ball. 

Although these are easily accessible today, they were very expensive in our childhood, which predates the US-China relations that began in the 1980s.

After the 1980s, with the cheap production model of "Commie" China and "Capitalist" America, we, the riff-raff poor like us, also got the opportunity to access products that used to decorate our dreams and were only under the monopoly of rich children.

May God bless "Commie" China.

Children today whose fathers are not rich now have balls, toys, and shoes.  

For a child, the political side of the event is not important.

What matters is whether they are dependent on the rich person's ball, bicycle, and toy.

If the politics designed by adults do not make children happy, it does not mean much.

Anyway, no one would leave the football world, which is so loved and popular, alone, and they didn't. 

People who you could call blockheads who still haven't solved the algorithm of what offside is, how it happens, and who should be ahead of whom; rogue businessmen who have never touched a ball and think a ball is a watermelon; 2nd-class parking lot mafia; imaginary exporters; fuel smugglers; and Yeşilçam scoundrels who want to gain reputation, launder black money, or become famous and spice up their mistress lives, dove into the football world and ruined this beautiful sport.

Those who grew up in football did not have a say in either the federation or club administrations. 

So much so that some were even banned from entering the facilities.

Hey, who are you kicking out of whose place!

Tomorrow, no one will remember you.

The dreams of children are not decorated by club managers, but by the likes of Lefter, Signor Bartu, Metin Oktay, Şenol, Tugay, Sergen, Volkan, Hami, Aykut, and Ünal. 

According to Einstein's "law of conservation of energy," there have always been and will always be İsmail Kartals who put their heart into the field. Not those who travel with bodyguards and look for heated seats.

Besides this, there are some names who have made great efforts and contributions to the progress of Turkish football. Since there are too many of them, I will not write them here. 

I may have forgotten some. 

It would be a shame later.

However, I cannot pass without writing about my favorite presidents. 

Süleyman Seba

Alp Yalman 

Sadri Şener

Faruk Özak 

Ali Koç

Let's close the parenthesis. 

Let's return to our topic.

Turkish football was talked about for years with the struggle between the 3 big Istanbul clubs.

Who will be the champion.

In the 1970s, Trabzonspor, under the coaching of Özkan Sümer and Ahmet Suat Yazıcı, began to challenge Istanbul clubs with the children of the city of Trabzon such as Goalkeeper Şenol, Ali Kemal, Turgay, Dozer Cemil, Tuncay, Dobi Hasan, and İskender.

Just as the first Turkish tribes migrating from Central Asia to Anatolia in the 9th century met with Commander Alpaslan on the Malazgirt plain in 1071, the Trabzonites who migrated to Istanbul in the 1950s-60s met in Istanbul with Trabzonspor in 1975.

The moment that the 1950-60 migrants, who settled in regions such as Çengelköy, Kuzguncuk, Beylerbeyi, Kanlıca, Suadiye, Göztepe, Bebek, Vani Köy, and the ridges of İstinye, had been waiting for a long time had arrived. 

The postman was at the door.

He was saying, "The club's bus has departed from Faroz."

He was saying the team would approach Bolu Mountain by licking the Ilgaz mountains via the Tosya road in less than 16 hours.  

It was time to put on the heirlooms they brought from their homeland, just in case there was a war or a fight.

Those who migrated from Maçka, Of, Sürmene, Araklı, Akçaabat, Vakfıkebir, and Beşikdüzü to foreign lands met Trabzonspor's bus on the Bolu Mountain ramps. 

Along with the Trabzonites, there were also people from Gümüşhane, Giresun, Rize, Ordu, Samsun, and Artvin.

The circle was narrowing.

All Eastern Black Sea people were on the roads to support Trabzonspor's siege of Istanbul. 

Then came the consecutive championships, cups, and the unforgettable Liverpool, Aston Villa, Barcelona, and Lyon matches.

Trabzon's constant defeat of Fener at Saraçoğlu was even the subject of the "Hababam Sınıfı" movie, directed by the famous Yeşilçam director Ertem Eğilmez and starring great actors Münir Özkul, Tarık Akan, and Kemal Sunal. 

As soon as match-fixing and dirty tricks dominated football, the color of the business changed.

It was no longer the struggle on the field and sweat that determined the champion, but other dark relationships.

Then came the July 3 operation by FETÖ against Fenerbahçe and the shooting incident in the Sürmene-Çamburnu area. 

FETÖ and its gladiator network were going to kill two birds with one stone. They were going to both destroy Fenerbahçe and make Trabzon the culprit. 

They were going to capture Fenerbahçe like a boneless fish.

The Yellow-Navies stood in their way.

Just as FETÖ's entire team was appointed to positions without merit by stealing questions and could not manage any organized work, thank God, they could not manage this assassination either. 

Their police were not police, their soldiers were not soldiers; because the stars on their shoulders were worn as a result of fake exams where questions were leaked in advance, they were paralyzed in the face of events requiring skill and experience.

Anyway, the taste of the football business had been spoiled.

Until the Video Assistant Referee "VAR" arrived and the FETÖ members were removed from the system.

It is easy to say, 38 years.  

With the intervention of VAR and the decrease in FETÖ's influence, error rates approached zero. 

The reward for perseverance, effort, and sweat began to be received again. 

The idea of a "guaranteed" match disappeared. 

The sweat shed by the rivals determined the champion. 

And 38 years later, Trabzonspor became the champion again. 

Just when we were hopeful that everything was going well, this last Fenerbahçe-Trabzon match caught everyone's attention. 

Both club presidents were complaining about the referee. 

The president of the winning team was attacking the referee, criticizing him, and standing tall, telling him to manage the match like a man. 

He was making brave statements without fearing the federation.

The exorbitantly priced tickets sold in the Tuzlaspor match were stirring things up, and foul odors were coming from everywhere. 

While the new generation of club presidents were doing their best for clean football and saying let the best win, what was happening that labor, success, and sweat were being pushed to the background again, and the dirty tricks were starting all over again?

The answer: Betting companies.

Betting companies, which have descended like a nightmare on all world sports, had also taken Turkish football into their radar. 

Anyway, let me not continue on this topic, because our topic is different.

As our doyen professor on football from Istanbul Aydın University, Prof. Dr. Mustafa Çıkrıkçı, said, if you examine the assets of referees and their relatives, you can easily solve the problem.

The brand value of the football world, which got back on track with the arrival of VAR and the cleaning of FETÖ (the betting-referee gang relationship will surely be solved), has increased, and with the increasing excitement, the number of viewers and the pleasure of watching have also increased.

After this much preamble, let's come to the point. 

News hit the agenda that a professor from İzmir Bakırçay University published an article with fabricated content and bibliography in a journal stated to be peer-reviewed. 

While reading this news, I remembered the associate professorship application of a candidate for whom I was a jury member 5-6 years ago. 

I was examining his file. 

I spent a long time examining the publications that came in a large box the size of a washing machine one by one. 

However, I did not come across anything noteworthy other than "Trash Articles". 

I encountered nonsensical writings published in fake journals that I had never heard of or known before. 

I called the floor attendant, Ms. Ayşe, and said, "Separate the useful stationery materials from the files in this box and take them home to your child. Throw the rest into recycling." 

This associate professor candidate was the Boğaziçi-graduate Department Head of the English Civil Engineering Department of a foundation university. 

Fortunately, they kicked him out of academia upon complaint. 

It is impossible to understand where a huge university found this fraudster.

Recently, this paid guaranteed publication-article (acceptance in 10 days, DOI number in 15 days) business has increased significantly.

An H-index gang has emerged. 

A reminder:

50 incompetent, foolish, and desperate academics who fell into the trap of a fake article gang after a "no name" e-mail they received 2-3 years ago shamelessly ended up in court. 

We should not forget the FETÖ-member academics who passed the language exam with leaked questions. 

We can no longer keep track. 

Because quantity has overtaken quality, the place is full of fake, vagrant academics. 

Reducing the associate professorship exam system to a "single" stage and making it point-based on the file was already the final nail in the coffin. 

There is no lack of FETÖ traces here either. 

An academic community of "postmen" chasing scores has formed in Turkey. 

The constant pressure from the Rectorate of "how many posts" of publications you have made has disrupted the entire order. 

Instead of racking their brains, working in the laboratory for months, and making 1-2 quality publications, publications made by utilizing ChatGPT and paying for them have become more acceptable. 

Even if it is unqualified, the "pressure to publish a lot" has pushed our academics who possess university philosophy, knowledge, and accumulation out of the system and replaced them with "how many publications did you make" vagrant academics. 

These vagrants are invited to the podium at academic openings, advertised, and shown as role models. 

They are also rewarded from Ankara. 

It is said that some are even Rectors. 

Therefore, many of our talented professors, in order not to be a cog in this wheel, either wait for retirement in their corner or never enter the academic promotion process, even if they meet the criteria. 

Because,

"Where crows caw, nightingales do not sing"

With the rapid increase in the number of vagrants, the decay is accelerating. 

This decay, like the donkey in Nasreddin Hodja's story whose barley was reduced day by day and suddenly kicked the bucket, will pass to the "flow limit" when the academic system reaches the "consistency limit" and the system will suddenly collapse. 

It will shake us all like the Maraş earthquake. Our 400 thousand residences, which appear to be in order in the municipalities' inventory, have zoning plans, were projected and manufactured by strictly adhering to science and technical rules, and therefore were given occupancy permits and have water and electricity meters connected, actually did not exist. 

It was expected to reach the consistency limit. 

When it passed to the flow limit, the truth just emerged. 

This system is a legacy to us from FETÖ. FETÖ-member fake academics, who have no morality, let alone academic morality, either founded these journals themselves, captured them, or infiltrated their editorial boards. 

They quickly published the publications of their own terrorist organization members here with a fake peer-review process and put pressure on other academics. 

FETÖ members quickly seized associate and professorship positions with unqualified fake publications. 

Although our deep-rooted universities tried to protect themselves from this plunder, they were also partially raped by some laws enacted around the famous REAL shopping mall of 90s Ankara (those who enacted those laws are still being tried for membership in a terrorist organization). 

Especially the new university staff established after 2008 made FETÖ's mouth water. 

These universities, where FETÖ-member fraudsters seized some of their staff, began to experience autism problems. 

Because the FETÖ members themselves were "Autistic". 

They were wandering around the campuses like "neanderthal tipitips" that resembled each other. 

Thank God, as a result of the failure of the July 15 FETÖ coup attempt, many of them were removed from these newly established universities by Decree-Law (KHK). 

Without saying what's done is done, it has become a necessity to prevent this fraud created by FETÖ, which still cannot be prevented, by establishing a VAR system in academia, just like in the "super league". 

The "two-stage associate professorship exam system" must be reorganized and put back into practice. 

When we tie academic promotion only to collecting points over numbers, we will inevitably encounter charlatans who think they are academics. 

At this rate, just as we thought those who fired missiles from a Turkish-owned F16 at the Gölbaşı Police Special Operations Unit, their own colleagues, citizens, and Parliament were staff pilots, we will think these vagrants are academics.  

If precautions are not taken, in the very near future, we will have to say goodbye to real academics and welcome to the vagrants, enjoy yourselves.

Let's not forget!

"Where Crows Caw, Nightingales Do Not Sing"

There is much more to be written on this subject. 

Our next article is Who is an academic, what are they, what do they do, what are they good for!