Turkish Football Federation

UEFA
Founded	23 April 1923
FIFA affiliation	1923[1]
UEFA affiliation	1962[1]
President	Mehmet Büyükekşi
Website	www.tff.org

The Turkish Football Federation (Turkish: Türkiye Futbol Federasyonu; TFF) is the governing body of association football in Turkey. It was formed on 23 April 1923, and joined FIFA the same year and UEFA in 1962. It organizes the Turkey national football team, the Turkish Football League and the Turkish Cup.

Governed competitions

Leagues

The Turkish football league system is divided into eight tiers, ranging from the top-tier Süper Lig to local amateur divisions.

Cups

The Turkish Cup changed its name to the Federation Cup (Turkish: Federasyon Kupası) in the 1980–81 season, then back to Turkish Cup in 1992–93.

Hosting bids

Turkey has had several unsuccessful bids to host the UEFA European Championship.

Turkey submitted a joint bid with Greece for UEFA Euro 2008, which failed. Their bid for UEFA Euro 2012 was also unsuccessful, with the competition going to Poland and Ukraine. The federation also submitted a bid to host UEFA Euro 2016, but on May 28, 2010, UEFA announced that Euro 2016 would be hosted by France. France beat bids of Turkey (7-6 in voting in second voting round) and Italy, which had the fewest votes in the first voting round. Turkey were also bidding for UEFA Euro 2024, competing against Germany. Germany were announced the hosts on September 27, 2018 at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.

Turkey had already hosted the 2005 UEFA Champions League Final and the 2009 UEFA Cup Final in Istanbul.^[2] At the youth-level, they hosted the UEFA European Under-17 Football Championship in 2008, after first hosting the event back in 1993.

Competition summary

As of May 2019

Presidents

As of 16 June 2022^[3]

Nat. Name Years Yusuf Ziya Öniş 1922–1926 Muvaffak Menemencioğlu 1926–1931 Hamdi Emin Çap 1931–1937 Sedat Rıza İstek 1937–1938 Danyal Akbel 1938–1943 Ziya Ateş 1943 Sadi Karsan 1943–1948 Vildan Aşir Savaşır 1948–1949 Ulvi Ziya Yenal 1949–1952 Mehmet Arkan 1952 Mümtaz Tarhan 1952 Orhan Şeref Apak 1952–1954 Ulvi Ziya Yenal 1954 Hasan Polat 1954–1957 Orhan Şeref Apak 1957–1958 Safa Yalçuk 1958–1959

Nat. Name Years Faik Gökay 1959–1960 Muhterem Özyurt 1960–1961 Bekir Silahçılar 1961 Orhan Şeref Apak 1961–1964 Muhterem Özyurt 1964–1965 Orhan Şeref Apak 1965–1970 Hasan Polat 1970–1976 Füruzan Tekil 1976–1977 Sabahattin Erman 1977 İbrahim İskeçe 1977–1978 Doğan Andaç 1980 Yılmaz Tokatlı 1980–1984 A. Kemal Ulusu 1984–1985 Erdoğan Ünver 1985–1986 Erdenay Oflaz 1986 Ali Uras 1986–1987

Nat. Name Years Halim Çorbalı 1987–1989 Şenes Erzik 1989–1997 Özkan Olcay 1997 Abdullah Kiğılı 1997 Haluk Ulusoy 1997–2004 Levent Bıçakcı 2004–2006 Haluk Ulusoy 2006–2008 Hasan Doğan 15 February 2008 – 5 July 2008 Mahmut Özgener 19 August 2008–29. June 2011 Mehmet Ali Aydınlar 29 June 2011 – 31 January 2012 Yıldırım Demirören 27 February 2012 – 1 March 2019 Hüsnü Güreli (interim) 1 March 2019 – 1 June 2019 Nihat Özdemir 1 June 2019 – 4 April 2022 Servet Yardımcı (interim) 4 April 2022 – 16 June 2022 Mehmet Büyükekşi 16 June 2022 – present

Controversies

Denial of former national championships

The TFF organized a nationwide championship as early as 1924. That year the Turkish Football Championship (Turkish: Türkiye Futbol Şampiyonası) was held in order to bring forth a national football champion.^[4][5] The championship format was based on a knockout competition, contested between the winners of each of the country's regional leagues. Some years later, in 1937, the first national league called Millî Küme was introduced. The league was held until 1950, one year before the Turkish Football Championship was also abolished.^[6][7]

Even though both competitions were organized by the TFF and were official championships respectively,^[8][9] they are not acknowledged and counted by the very same federation which held them. Until today no official reason or motive was given for the unparalleled and irregular denial. All other football associations in Europe without exception consequently acknowledge their former national championships. The Turkish Federation is the only one with such a stance.

As a result, Ankara Demirspor became the first club to officially demand the federation to acknowledge their championship title won in 1947, but received no answer at all to date.^[10][when?] Club president Nuğman Yavuz stated that he contacted the Turkish Federation twice, but the federation did not respond in any way.^[11] Similarly, Fenerbahçe also requested proper acknowledgement of these national championship titles, and faced the same unconstructive reaction.^[12] Having won a total of nine titles in both former championships, the club demands to have those official titles rightfully acknowledged.^{[13][14][15][16]}

The lack of comprehension and awareness concerning the baseless denial of proper championship titles is growing in the general Turkish public and among Turkish sports people. For instance, Mehmet Demirkol, a renowned sports writer and commentator which is a Fenerbahçe fan,^[17] stated that Beşiktaş won their 20th championship title overall in the 2016–17 season, not their 15th.^{[18][19][Video 1]} Numerous other sports writers, persons of authority, politicians, and officials also openly expressed their opinions on this issue and reinforced the view that the Turkish federation should unambiguously acknowledge and count the former championship titles.^{[20][21][22][23][24][Video 2][Video 3]}