The Turkish Super Cup ended on Sunday evening (April 7th, 2024) with an absolute joke: Fenerbahce sent its U19s onto the field against Galatasaray and stopped the game in the 3rd minute – at this point “Gala” was already 1: 0 in the lead and then celebrated winning the title exuberantly despite this farce.
In the Turkish Süper Lig, Galatasaray leads with 84 points, just ahead of Fenerbahce (82), so this duel was highly anticipated.
But in the afternoon, Fenerbahce had already advised their own fans against traveling to the final and explained through vice president Erol Bilecik that they would only send the youngsters and that the game would “not last 90 minutes”.
According to Bilecik, the professional team would instead prepare for the quarter-finals in the Conference League next Thursday at Olympiakos Piraeus.
Constant dispute with the Turkish association
Galatasaray had already been ahead 1-0 after just a few seconds in the final thanks to Mauro Icardi, the Argentine had headed in from Yilmaz’s cross. Shortly afterwards, the Fener officials waved their youth players off the pitch – Icardi mockingly applauded this incredible action.
Background of the farce. With the protest, Fener wanted to send a signal against supposedly unfair treatment in the dispute with the national association TFT that had been simmering for months. On the one hand, the club had unsuccessfully requested that the Supercup duel with its arch-rival be postponed in view of the match against Piraeus.
On the other hand, Fenerbahce’s demand for a foreign referee remained unfulfilled, even though the local referees had been at the center of scandals several times in recent months.
The first attempt in Saudi Arabia also fell flat
The farce on Sunday evening was the second attempt to play this game. The Turkish Super Cup between Galatasaray and Fenerbahce was actually supposed to take place in Saudi Arabia last December. The game was canceled at short notice.
Turkish and foreign media had previously reported unanimously that Galatasaray and Fenerbahce wanted to commemorate Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 with T-shirts and banners during the warm-up. Host Saudi Arabia is said not to have allowed this. Both teams therefore refused to enter the pitch.