Turkey is in shock, hit by a large-scale football scandal. The Turkish Football Federation (TFF) has launched an investigation into the approximately 571 referees in its service, producing staggering conclusions about them. “ 371 have betting accounts and 152 actively bet », Says Ibrahim Haciosmanoglu, president of the TFF.
“ We are determined to cleanse football of all traces of corruption. We will make no exceptions », continues the latter, without waiting for “ necessary sanctions » against offenders. The controversy is all the greater as some of the referees taken by the patrol officiate on a national scale.
Foreign referees as reinforcements
The TFF makes it clear that these are central referees but also assistant referees. The largest of the transgressors having alone placed 18,227 illegal bets. And 42 of them having exceeded the threshold of 1,000 prohibited bets. The Turkish Football Federation, on the other hand, is currently refusing to indicate whether the officials concerned were betting on their own matches.
Faced with growing suspicions in recent years regarding the probity of certain referees, the TFF did not hesitate from 2024 to call on foreign referees to supervise the video assistance of the big posters of the Turkish Süper Lig. On February 24, Slovenian Slavko Vincic even led the Istanbul poster debates between Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe.
