Acun Ilıcalı: We Will Bring Down This Structure

Fenerbahce Vice President Acun Ilıcalı made statements on Beyaz TV regarding ongoing controversies in the Super League, touching on referee decisions, referee appointments, the structure of the Turkish Referee Committee (MHK), the issue of foreign referees, and other current topics.

Here are some key points from Acun Ilıcalı’s statements:

“WE CAN’T STAND INJUSTICE”
“We don’t want to be part of the fight. We believe that Turkish football will see better days. There have always been tense periods in Turkish football. We may seem more tense because we can’t stand injustice. We want fairness. We are obliged to be the voice of the community. We took on this role to be that voice. Ultimately, it was our president’s decision. This responsibility was given to me within the Fenerbahce administration, and where necessary, our president will speak himself.”

“THERE ARE CERTAIN FIGURES EMBEDDED INSIDE, REFEREES, OBSERVERS”
“Last week, I briefly said strange things are happening in Turkish football. I want a direct answer. Don’t defame me, just explain the situation. Attacks won’t get anyone anywhere. We expected concrete answers to concrete questions, and within three days, we were proven right. Some people are gaining strange, senseless advantages. A player like Dries Mertens doesn’t receive a red card despite obvious fouls. I’m not pointing fingers at the MHK president or the TFF president. The head of the federation said, ‘I don’t accept mistakes in VAR.’ We’re waiting for actions. When we promised our fans, we said we would dismantle this system. First, we expect changes by exposing the situation and requesting intervention from the federation.”

“WE WILL BREAK THIS STRUCTURE DOWN”
“I spoke to the head of the English Referee Committee. I asked, ‘How do you select referees?’ He said, ‘We ask incoming referees which team they support, their residency, whether anyone in their family supports a particular team, and then assign matches accordingly.’ Either the referees are provoking us to attack the TFF, or they are sabotaging the TFF president. Something is going on. We will break down this structure step by step.”

“WHEN HAS THERE BEEN A MAJOR ERROR IN A FENERBAHCE MATCH?”
“Just because Ahmet Çakar wasn’t influenced as a referee, doesn’t mean today’s referees aren’t. Are the English stupid for not assigning referees to games involving the teams they support? If it’s done in Europe, we should do it too. Referee mistakes are the most normal thing in the world. A game is stopped for 17 minutes, 10 of which are because of VAR, but you only add six minutes of stoppage time. What is that? Why doesn’t this happen to Fenerbahce? The game could be stopped for 15 minutes, but the referee wants to end it in five.”

LAST SEASON’S PENALTY IN THE KASIMPASA GAME
“There was a 40-meter ball, did it hit the player’s hand or not? I called Aytac Kara after the match, and he confirmed the ball hit his hand. The Kasımpaşa match is the only example you can give, and even then, the ball hit his hand. We didn’t take undeserved points from that game. And Aytac is not even a Fenerbahce fan.”

“NO FOOTAGE OF ICARDI IN THE KADIKOY MATCH”
“There’s no footage of Mauro Icardi in the Kadıkoy match. Show the footage of the blow to his face, and I’ll be convinced. VAR can’t intervene because there’s no angle. The VAR’s intervention is wrong. No one can determine the intensity of that position. Did Icardi throw himself down, or did Djiku hit him too hard? It could be a penalty.”

“HERE’S YOUR SYSTEM”
“The VAR referee for the Kasımpasa game, Erkan Engin, didn’t get a match for 60 days. The VAR referee for Galatasaray’s match against Antalyaspor got a game 20 days later. This is the system you’re dealing with.”

“PEOPLE ARE ATTACKING OUR PRESIDENT FROM THERE”
“Our president liked the MHK president’s presentation. People are attacking him for that. I wasn’t in the meeting. He explained what they plan to do regarding referees. We liked the presentation, but if mistakes happen in implementation, will you say, ‘You liked the presentation?’”

“WE WILL DIG TO THE BOTTOM”
“We trust the TFF president; they will dig to the bottom step by step. This is about something else. We will uncover it, and break it down, step by step. It sounds great to me.”

“BESİKTAS HAS COMPLAINTS TOO”
“Besiktas as complaints too. Their player was thrown to the ground.”

“ONLY TWO MINUTES OF STOPPAGE TIME IN THE GALATASARAY GAME”
“In the Galatasaray game, five minutes of stoppage time were given, but only two were played. Galatasaray used one minute and 40 seconds for a substitution. Last week, when the score was tied, they extended stoppage time. This week, when they were leading, the stoppage time wasn’t played.”

“I DON’T TRUST THIS REFEREE”
“If you enter a meeting with the nickname ‘Champion Galatasaray,’ you can’t manage a game objectively. I don’t trust your decisions. Why didn’t people question which team Ahmet Cakar supported? Because there was no issue back then. Now, there is an issue. In England and Germany, referees don’t officiate games involving teams they support, and it should be the same here.”

“LET’S BRING THE BEST REFEREES FROM EUROPE”
“If we can’t prevent referees from officiating the games of teams they support here, the solution is foreign referees. The problem is 90% due to the referees. They are the cause of the tension. Let’s bring the best referees from Europe. This week in Greece, there was a German referee. The TFF president, İbrahim Hacıosmanoğlu, speaks positively about referees and says the issues will be resolved. We want fair mistakes, even if they go against us.”

“GALATASARAY’S RIGHTS SHOULDN’T BE TAKEN AWAY EITHER”
“We are at the start of October. If we are going to solve this, give us and the TFF time. Weird things are happening for no apparent reason. What matters is bringing peace to Turkish football. If my solution is followed, peace will come tomorrow. I don’t want Galatasaray’s rights to be taken away either.”

“WE WERE LEFT WITH A TURKISH REFEREE AGAIN IN SİVAS”
“We lost the championship in the Sivasspor game. Did we say anything? We asked for a foreign referee, and we got a foreign VAR, but they made a mistake. We didn’t accuse them of taking orders. The situation was funny too. The main referee doesn’t have to follow VAR’s advice. A real referee wouldn’t have given that penalty. Once again, we were left to a Turkish referee, and he immediately gave the penalty. We are good people as a nation, but these things happen because of big team allegiances.”

“GALATASARAY GOT 5 RED CARDS IN 9 EUROPEAN GAMES”
“We are not the ones struggling with foreign referees and getting red cards. Do you remember the last time Galatasaray got a red card at home? You can’t because it hasn’t happened in two years. In nine European games, they’ve received five red cards!”

“IS GALATASARAY ASKING FOR FOREIGN REFEREES?”
“The cup is full, the system has collapsed. Is Galatasaray asking for foreign referees? That’s a good one (laughing). Let’s not get into whether they want it or not.”