Ali Koç: We have shared our 5-year roadmap with our federation

The Clubs Association Foundation and the Turkish Football Federation management met at a meeting held in Riva. Following the meeting, Clubs Association President Ali Koç made statements to the press. Stating that it was not an extraordinary meeting, Ali Koç said, “It was a meeting held at our request, where we worked on the issues we decided to work on after our last meeting. It was a technical meeting. Football is in great trouble regarding the economy.

We discussed this with our federation, just as we did with our politicians. We reviewed what has happened in Turkish football over the last 5 years and where we have come from. We have shared with our federation the 5-year roadmap prepared by the clubs to achieve economic health. This is a draft, but the important thing is that we will work together with the federation.

We will form a team for this in October. We will start a working group to make our initial findings by the end of the year. Because Turkish football is becoming unsustainable every day from an economic perspective. We explained once again that those responsible for this are not just the managers or the clubs, but also economic reasons that are completely outside the clubs,” he said.

"WE NEED TO FOCUS ON THE PIRACY ISSUE"

Touching upon the fact that they also discussed broadcasting revenue, President Koç said, “Some places see clubs and club managers as the usual suspects. However, the fact that broadcasting revenues have fallen so much, taxes have increased from 15 to 40 percent, the exchange rate has risen this much, and inflation has increased are not issues under the responsibility of the clubs, but they affect the clubs the most. We explained these.

We held consultations on how we can get out of this. We need to focus on the issue of piracy to increase broadcasting revenues. Has the law been passed? Yes, it has. There is also a mechanism for the broadcaster to block it when they detect a pirate mechanism. But currently, the fastest it can be blocked is in 37 minutes. The average is 70 to 90 minutes. The match is already 90 minutes long. The longest is 100 minutes.

Of course, we need 2 more steps to prevent this. First, penalties must be increased urgently. More importantly, service providers need to make a technology investment to prevent this. There is a tender in 2027. We need to work in 2026 so that we can conduct the tender in the best way possible. Our Spor Toto revenues have decreased 100-fold proportionally in 10 years. But the pie has grown significantly,” he expressed.

"WE CAN SAY WE WERE STUNNED BY THE PRESENTATION MADE BY THE TFF"

Providing information about other topics discussed at the meeting, Koç said, “We talked about federation sponsorships, fund deductions, and broadcasting revenue deductions. We talked about the structure of the Central Referee Committee (MHK). Our MHK President gave a very satisfactory presentation. We agreed in principle with our federation to work together with the Clubs Association regarding the MHK. Clubs should be patient, at least for the first half of this season. We discussed the e-ticket tender. A new system is being switched to next year. There is an infrastructure agreement that has been made.

It will be signed today or tomorrow. Clubs are also free to work with whichever ticketing company they want. We consulted on the issue of standing fans in stadiums. This was being done in many countries in Europe, but it was not done in UEFA matches. For the first time this year, UEFA is implementing the standing spectator issue in 5 countries. We discussed some of our requests regarding the Ministry of Interior.

Our ministry recently held a very important meeting for the safety of football. It was a useful meeting. I would like to thank our minister. There were presentations the federation made to us. It would not be right for me to go into detail, but in short, we can say that we were stunned by this presentation. We talked about issues related to financial fair play. I can tell you that it was a very useful meeting for Turkish football,” he stated.

"I HOPE THEY GO AS FAR AS THEY CAN"

Finally, wishing success to the Turkish teams that will compete in European cups this season, Ali Koç concluded his words by saying, “First of all, may God clear our path. We could not earn as many points in the play-off matches in the summer months as we did last year. But now we are 4 teams. May we have plenty of luck. I hope we get as many points as we can. We are stepping into a brand new system for the first time. We don't fully know how it will be either. It is a very different system, but I hope the Turkish teams go as far as they can.”

News Source: İHA