What happened in Turkish football today? 08.08.2017

Turkish Cup would once again be played as knockout stage.

Turkish Football Federation has announced that Turkish Cup structure would be changing from this season as it would be getting rid of the group stages and would come back to the classical cup structure of knockout stages.

Group stage at the Turkish Cup has been criticised a lot from several of critics, apart of possibly ATV who was broadcaster of tournament as it meant their would translate more games, due of affecting negatively to the tournament. With most clubs putting Turkish Cup below its priority has led for teams not to provide their good football at the group stage. Even through some clubs might not have put again Turkish Cup as top priority, the route at winning it would become reduced and hence less games. It needs to be reminded that group stage has been introduced following 2010-11 season which has been dominated by match-fixing as an attempt to reduce for match-fixing to take place again.

This decision is been one of the right ones by TFF lately and would be able certainly raise quality of Turkish Cup once again starting from this season and provide more seriousness from teams and coaches.

Besiktas has extended contract with its player Tolgay Arslan for 5 years.

It became clear that Besiktas has made an agreement to extend contract with its player Tolgay Arslan for 5 years and hence closing all of the talks of him possibly leaving the team.

Even through Tolgay Arslan didnt recieve lots of playing time during last season and has mainly played during Turkish Cup games, his importance to the team and quality has been shown several times. Him staying at the team might be even more crucial due of several issues at the back of the team and with Tolgay Arslan being mainly playing at the defensive side could be used as good alternative with Atinc Nukan injury and selling of Marcel. As was remembered there was lots of transfer rumours regarding of Arslan during this summer transfer window but none of them has even come close to become reality which is certainly played an important role as Besiktas has shown that it does want to keep its player and 5-year contract is proof of that.

Tolgay Arslan has great capability to have important games with his club and play an important role for providing memorable results for the team next season and in future.

Arda Turan could be returning to Turkish National Team. 

It became clear that Turkish National Team head coach Mircea Lucescu is currently going through
foreign travels to have talks with number of Turkish players playing abroad with biggest focus given to Barcelona player Arda Turan.

As it is known, back in 6th June following friendly game against Macedonia Arda Turan has announced that he has ended his career as national team player following an attack towards journalist Bilal Mese on the plane. Mircea Lucescu did state that Arda Turan is important to the team and vice versa. Hence, he did have lots of intensive talks with Arda Turan and it is reported that Arda Turan is glad and happy for such conversation and would consider to return to a team. It needs to be stated that this return can become reality as one of the reasons for such tension has been factor that Arda Turan had problems with communication with ex-coach Fatih Terim.

There is good chance that Arda Turan would be returning to national team but he needs to think about it and is very likely to make final decision prior to World Cup Qualifier against Ukraine on 2nd September.

In other news:

- Kayserispor has won pre-season friendly game against Tarsus Idman Yurdu with 3:0 scoreline.

- Turkish Football Federation has announced its referrals to Professional Football Disciplinary Committee which are:
- Besiktas has been referred for events at the field.
- Besiktas CEO Fikret Orman has been referred for his anti-sportmanship statements.
- Konyaspor has been referred for events at the field and behaviour of fans.

- Bursaspor has loaned Porto player Mikel Agu for 1 year.

- Galatasaray CEO Dursun Ozbek considers to announce his candidacy for Clubs Union CEO role.

- Osmanlispor CEO Sadik Dik has announced his candidacy for Clubs Union CEO position.

- Besiktas will have administrative board meeting on 26th August.

- Konyaspor has opened criminal case against people who have entered at the field during Super Cup game against Besiktas of both sides.

- Besiktas Vodafone Park director Ahmet Ates and media representative Selim Sakarcan has opened defamatory case against Konyaspor for club statements about them in today's announcement.

- Besiktas player Adriano has become injured during today's training session.

- Fenerbahce CEO Aziz Yildirim: We have send transfer offer to Emre Mor 2 million loan with 8 million purchase offer yesterday. We waiting.We still working with those 4 transfers. Some sponsorship would come to us.We still have time until end-month

- Besiktas CEO Fikret Orman: We have stated that there is no reason to refer us to PFDK but their found it. We would defend ourselves.Konyaspor has deserved Super Cup, no doubt. But their fans didnt it. There were more fans of them at the field. Now their saying we made this but so did Besiktas. We will not allow those games on us.Besiktas CEO will not announce his candidacy to Clubs Union. It wont suit us.

- Bursaspor CEO Ali Ay: We made very good team for this season especially in defence. We close to make some transfer deals also.Faty, Necid, Sercan Yildirim and Mert Ornek would leave team for sure. We would have 26-28 players this season.

- Goztepe CEO Mehmet Sepil: We still to make 2-3 transfers until end of the transfer window. We would play our game at Bornova Stadium.

- Fenerbahce are interested to Villarreal transfer Soldado.

- Real Betis, Celta Vigo and Espanyol are interested to transfer Fenerbahce ex- player Volkan Sen.

- Besiktas: Our player Atinc Nukan had a successful operation in his injury.

- Fenerbahce has requested 7 million euro from Malaga for Ozan Tufan transfer.

- Spartak Moscow player Serdar Tasci has informed to his team that he wants to join Trabzonspor.

- Fenerbahce has offered 2 million euro loan offer to Arsenal player Lucas Perez with 10 million euro contact offer.

- Galatasaray are interested to transfer Chelsea player Abdul Rahman Baba.

- Galatasaray has requested report from head coach Igor Tudor to state reasons of poor performance by team.

- Besiktas head coach Senol Gunes is not interested to transfer Inter Milan player Gary Medel.

- Fenerbahce are interested to transfer Pachuga player Angelo Sagal.

- Turkish referees Cuneyt Cakir, Huseyin Gocek and Halis Ozkaya are attending to UEFA high class referee seminar in Genevre between 9-11/08.

- Inter Milan technical manager Walter Sabatini: There is some problems with Emre Mor but its early in week. Some things might change in week.