Soccer Cities: Istanbul

Although the passion and fervour of match day can occasionally spill over into hostility, and the casual spectator may need to keep their wits about them at times, the atmosphere at big games in Turkey’s capital is unlike anything anywhere else in Europe, with a memorable show of colour and noise being whipped up inside the stadia several hours before kick-off.

Dominating the domestic game in terms of support, media interest and success, the city’s “big three” have been involved in all 53 seasons of the national championship (which started half a century after they did) and the Super Lig title has left Istanbul only once in the past 27 years – although a match-fixing scandal this summer did see a non-Istanbul side, Trabzonspor, awarded the country’s Champions League group-stage place.

Formed in 1903, Besiktas are the oldest of the trio and have won the league 13 times, while Galatasaray (1905) were the first Turkish team to win a European trophy (the UEFA Cup in 2000) and have 17 titles – which is one less than Fenerbahce on the Asian side of town, who remain the country’s most universally popular club.

The city’s fourth club, Istanbul BB, were only formed in 1990 from an amalgamation of clubs but they did reach last season’s Turkish Cup Final, where they lost on penalties to Besiktas.

Big Derby clash

For intensity, there are few derbies to rival Istanbul’s clash between Galatasaray and Fenerbahce. Along with the long pre-match build-up of drums, flares and ritual chanting, there is usually more than just local pride at stake – 15 of the past 20 Turkish league titles have gone to one of the two clubs.

The first recorded trouble between the two sides came in 1934 when a derby game had to be abandoned after fighting between rival players. The most notorious incident occurred in the 1996 Turkish Cup Final, when victorious Gala manager Graeme Souness nearly provoked a riot by planting his club’s flag right in the middle of the Fener centre circle, adding considerable insult to injury.

The game’s grassroots

With Ottoman rulers frowning upon the foreign influence of the game, Istanbul’s football clubs all have their roots in areas of the city with large Christian or Jewish populations or foreign schools.

Geographically, Galatasaray and Fenerbahce are separated by a continental divide, with Fener’s ground on the Asian side of the city. Traditionally, Galatasaray had a more educated, middle-class fan base, with the club having historic ties to the Lycee school in the Beyoglu area of town.

The founder of the post-Ottoman Turkish republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, was a Fenerbahce fan and most cosmopolitan in his outlook, and by the 1930s there was a thriving Istanbul league and regional play-offs.

Liverpool

Word Cup

The World Cup finals will be staged in Qatar in 2022 in November and December if the FIFA executive committee next month rubber-stamps a recommendation drawn up today by the world federation’s ‘calendar committee.’

But ahead of mid-March a great deal of persuasive talking will go on behind the scenes, aimed mainly at convincing Europe’s leagues – which provide 75pc of the World Cup players and all of the superstars – that slashing a hole in their season is not as commercially and popularly deadly as they fear.

The finals were awarded to Qatar by FIFA’s exco, controversially, in December 2010. Simultaneously Russia was awarded the 2018 finals in a vote which later prompted an inquiry into talk of bidding misconduct.

Allegations of serious wrongdoing have been dismissed by a FIFA ethics investigation led by now-departed American lawyer Michael Garcia.

A proposal for a May World Cup had been put forward by the European Club Association and the European Professional Football Leagues. But this was rejected. The most likely dates would probably be an Opening Match on November 26 with a World Cup Final on December 23.

Playing in January/February was ruled out so as to avoid a clash with the Winter Olympic Games which will be staged in Almaty, Kazakhstan, or Beijing, China.

Initially the Qataris had proposed developing revolutionary air-cooling technology for the stadia, training venues and fan zones. This would have been essential in the traditional June/July slot but would be unnecessary in the Gulf state’s winter.

A major complication is that the finals are usually declared a ‘football-free zone’ throughout the world but many European leagues will wish to continue in televisual and commercial competition. This could create a stage for the ultimate head-to-head confrontation between the club game and the national team football.

A FIFA statement said the other dates were not viable and had the full support of all the six confederations. This means that even the European federation, UEFA, had backed the proposal — against the wishes of its big leagues and richest clubs.

UEFA president Michel Platini had always campaigned for a winter World Cup and had remained relaxed about the disruption both to the domestic leagues and even to the European federations’ own competitions, the Champions League and Europa League.

FIFA’s statement suggested that the disruption could be limited to only one season by switching the 2021 Confederations Cup – the traditional warm-up event – to another Asian nation and staging the 2021 Club World Cup in Qatar as an alternative rehearsal.

Xenophobic howls of outrage from European league football conveniently ignored the fact that most of the rest of the world game runs its season on a spring-to-autumn schedule and has to cope with domestic disruption every four years to allow for the World Cup.

A FIFA task force on Tuesday recommended playing the 2022 World Cup in November-December to avoid the summer heat in Qatar.

FIFA said the task force chose the ''most viable period'' over other proposals to play in January, April or May, dates favored mostly by European soccer. FIFA also said the tournament should be shorter than the current 32-day schedule.

The plan must be approved by the FIFA executive committee, chaired by President Sepp Blatter, at a March 19-20 meeting in Zurich.

Blatter, who is an IOC member, has long favored November-December to avoid clashing with the Winter Olympics, scheduled for February 2022.

''Given that the two bidding cities for the 2022 Winter Olympics - Almaty (Kazakhstan) and Beijing (China) - pledged recently to host the winter games from Feb. 4-20, 2022; that the month of Ramadan begins on April 2 in 2022; and that consistently hot conditions prevail from May to September in Qatar, the only remaining effective option is the November-December window,'' FIFA said in a statement.

European clubs and leagues oppose FIFA's proposal, which shuts them down for several weeks in midseason.

The FIFA executive committee chose Qatar as host in December 2010, when the gas-rich emirate won a five-nation bidding contest to host the tournament in the traditional June-July slot.

Tuesday's recommendation comes 17 months after the FIFA board - minus several members who have left since the hosting vote after being implicated in corruption - ordered a consultation on finding the best dates in Qatar.