What happened in Turkish football today? 07.04.2016

Galatasaray player Lukas Podolski underlines that there is no intention for him to leave the club.

Galatasaray player Lukas Podolski has organised press conference today with the media with an aim to show his unhappiness with rumours which media provides regarding of the rumours that he is planning to leave the club. Using calm conversation, he actually did provide strong message to the media.

Rumours about Lukas Podolski wanting to leave the club or club wanting to sell him were going around at the Turkish media from around mid-season transfer period and it is very likely that there is number of clubs who are interested to sign him. However, Lukas Podolski during today conference underlined that he plans to stay at the club and didnt have any transfer negotiations with any club until now and does not plan to do so. He also celebrated basketball team achievement to get to EuroCup final and stated that Besiktas has more chance to win the league. Lukas Podolski surely needs to get used to Turkish media way of criticising players and starting transfer rumours as season progresses as most of newly-signed players seems to be surprised and need time to get used to this character of Turkish media.

Podolski surely didnt show his best perfomance so far during this season however he might be crucial in game against Fenerbahce next week and Turkish Cup semi-final games against Rizespor.

Trabzonspor plans to restart match-fixing case with UEFA.

Trabzonspor has released a statement today that the club still carries on its fight against match-fixing allegations towards 2011-12 Super League season where it believes that club's title was stolen. However, main difference of this administration is calmness by Trabzonspor staff which could lead their case in more calmer manner.

Trabzonspor CEO Muharrem Usta, at least so far and apart of referee Deniz Yilmaz scandal during Galatasaray game, has been pretty calm and didnt use agressive language compare to its predeccesors. Even through chances of Trabzonspor winning its long-term fight against match-fixing getting slim as time passes, at least this process which could restart would go in calm manner and maybe UEFA and CAS will take their views more seriously. It is crucial during the battle not to get more opponents to its side.

To some extend this move is going through popularity as club knows that its supporters still unhappy with matchfixing case and aims to show them that it does something about it.

Turkey is only team at its Euro2016 group to gain places at FIFA World Ranking.

With almost two months left until start of Euro2016, FIFA has released its April World Ranking list where Turkish National Team has rose 7 positions to 13th place, getting closer to the top 10 section.

Surely this raise was dominated by the two wins against Sweden and Austria at friendly games last month.  But even more important Turkey among competitors of Euro 2016 is at 7th position which hence makes it one of the favourites to get title Euro 2016. Coming to the opponents at its group stage, Spain as expected is highest at 6th place (losing 3 places), Croatia 23rd place (losing 3 places) and Czech Republic 29th place (losing 4 places). Interestingly also Turkey is only team at this group which gain places rather than losing, and gaining it impressively.

Main reason of this raise is having no losing record and with 2 more rankings being announced team could likely rise up few more places especially in last ranking prior Euro with the help of pre-Euro2016 friendlies.

Schedule
Turkish Super League, 28th week
20:00 Gaziantepspor - Sivasspor

In other news: 

- Professional Football Disciplinary Committee has announced fines and bans, which are:

- Rizespor has recieved 9,000 TL fine for anti-sportmanship behaviour by team.
- Sivasspor has recieved 15,000 TL fine for fans behaviour by team.
- Basaksehirspor has recieved 15,000 TL fine for not watering field in correct manner by team.
- Gaziantepspor has recieved 50,000 TL fine for behaviour of fans which was repeated 3rd time per season.
- Osmanlispor has recieved warning for fans behaviour by team.

- One of the constructor worker has become serious injured during construction of Akyaz iStadium.

- Galatasaray has announced that it made 57,460,974 TL loss for calendar year of 2015.

- Fenerbahce player Robin van Persie has become injured during today's training session.

- Fenerbahce will recieve 500,000 dollars bonus for Konyaspor win and 1,000,000 dollars for Galatasaray.

- Besiktas player Tolgay Arslan has asked FIFA to allow him to play for Turkish National Team.

- Besiktas player Tolga Zengin has resumed training sessions after recovering from injury.

- Galatasaray player Selcuk Inan has resumed training sessions after recovering from injury.

- Galatasaray player Fernando Muslera manager Daniel Fonseca states that River Plate did contact him for transfer.

- Galatasaray players Selcuk Inan and Wesley Sneijder will not be ready for Rizespor but expected to play against Fenerbahce on 13th April.

- Besiktas player Cenk Tosun and Oguzhan Ozyakup didnt attend today's training session.

- Chinese clubs are interested to transfer Barcelona player Arda Turan.

- Antalyaspor are interested to transfer Fenerbahce player Diego Ribas.

- Fenerbahce player Diego Ribas has start talks with Spanish and Portuguese club to be transferred in summer.

- Fenerbahce are interested to transfer Bayern Munich player Franck Ribery

- Galatasaray has appointed 50 scouts to look for young players to transfer this summer.

- WestHamUnited plans to offer 8 million euro to Besiktas for Gokhan Tore.

- Galatasaray player Fernando Muslera is uncertain if to stay at club if goalkeeper trainer Claudio Taffarel leaves club in summer.

- Besiktas are interested to transfer Bursaspor player Serdar Aziz.

- HebeiChinaFortuna are interested to transfer Galatasaray player Lukas Podolski.

- Besiktas would gain extra 1 million euro from transfer of Atinc Nukan to Red Bull Leibzig if teams gets to Austrian Bundesliga.