What happened in Turkish football today? 09/10/2018

VAR seems to make Turkish referees too relaxed.

VAR system which was introduced to Super League during this season quite naturally has recieved lots of conversation at the Turkish sports media especially following 5 minute and 40 second period when system didnt work during Fenerbahce -Basaksehirspor game.

The issue with VAR argumentation is mainly to the factor of not system being uneffective and not doing good towards football, in fact it does recieve high amount of support but due of the factor that some referees are not showing good will. Foremost, it is important to note that it does look like number of the referees seems to be too relaxed with this system as their now their would have backup to their decision and not paying too much focus of the game. Besiktas CEO Fikret Orman, during today press conference did state that their need to be some additional works to be done with referees for adaptation of the VAR. It does seem to be case however that with VAR  being very successful during World Cup 2018 in Russia, it doesnt managet to get full support and does show high number of issues. Taking account that VAR did show that is system it can work well, it does look like referees still needs to get adapted to the system and also carry on taking responsibility to reduce mistakes and not being too much reliable to VAR.

It was stated that transformation towards VAR will not be easy but it did make referees bit too relaxed and this should be solved by those referees to regain trust from football followers.

Phillip Cocu future at the team stays uncertain.

Future of the Fenerbahce head coach Phillip Cocu as would been expected is still among main focussed subjects as there is expectation that Fenerbahce could sack Phillip Cocu during this national team break.

Stating that, it needs to be admitted that Fenerbahce did improve its performance during last two games against Spartak Trnava and Basaksehirspor, but as would been expected its still not in level which fans would like to see. However, this factor of improvement which is likely to continue with Cocu should not be ignored. In fact, to some extend it does look like that main blame at Fenerbahce slowly seems to be moving from Cocu towards Comolli even more, as he was responsible to reduce quality of the squad with selling quality players at the team and buying players which are not in level of the team right now. It has been announced that Fenerbahce CEO Ali Koc would have statements about recent events which took place and would certainly also talk about Phillip Cocu at that programme among issue of Volkan Demirel and other players taking out of the squad. There are as been expected lots of questions right now at the team and he would be expected to make things clear tomorrow.

For now, it is hard to state how would be future of the Phillip Cocu but as known, Koc is not interested much to appoint Turkish coach as plan B.

Volkan Demirel scandal still has many unanswered questions. 

Another talking point at the Fenerbahce right now is been about Volkan Demirel, Nabir Dirar and Aatif Chachehouhue being taking out of the squad for indefinite period of time.

Without doubt, the main shock and focus has been towards Volkan Demirel who has been always strong and defender of the club at the field and outside of it. It is reported that reason for him to be taking out of squad has been mainly due of disagreements which he has with sports director Damien Comolli and also other administrators. This disrespective behaviour did cost him his position at the team right now. It is also reported that he would be forgiven if he provides apology for his action but Volkan Demirel doesnt think he did something wrong and is stated to think that he doesnt even know what to apologize about. It is expected that this issue would be solved at the end but it is not clear if it would be rather soon or later as it seems to be also conclusion of why he was taking out of the squad.

This events are also showing in what kind of situation the team is at internally which has led from poor performance and this national team break is good opportunity to reduce pressure inside the team at least a bit.

In other news:

- PFDK referalls:
- Kayserispor, Rizespor and Fenerbahce have referred for behaviour of fans
- Kayserispor player Rajko Rotman and Rizespor player Brain Samudio has been referred for breaking rules
- Bursaspor has been referred for behaviour of fans and events at field
- Trabzonspor has been referred for not leaving stairs empty.
- Konyaspor has been referred for behaviour of fans and 6 players recieving yellow cards in game
- Besiktas has been referred for behaviour of fans 6 players recieving yellow cards in game and 1 red card

- Turkish referee Ali Palabayik would referee Nations League Group D game between Belarus and Luxembourg.

- Fenerbahce: Turkish courts exactly 3 years ago has set free our ex-CEO Aziz Yildirim from match fixing case. So far, court didnt announce end of case against FETO and still expecting all compensation to be announced towards us.

- Fenerbahce has raised request amount from Capital Markets Board from 70,700,000 TL to 98,980,000 TL from agreement made on 4th October.

- Fenerbahce would play friendly game against Istanbulspor on 11th October.

- Goztepe would play friendly game against Altinordu on 14th October.

- Konyaspor would play friendly game against Osmanlispor on 13th October.

- Bursaspor head coach Samet Aybaba has announced that Yusuf Erdogan and Furkan Soyalp has been forgiven and would attend training session from today.

- Trabzonspor CEO Ahmet Agaoglu: This team would always be at top spot race, noone should worry about that. We have one of the strongest sides at league. As soon as we solve internal issue, team would improve performance. I am happy how our performs right now, we work as team.

- Fenerbahce player Islam Slimani has become injured

- Galatasaray has declined rumours that Eren Derdiyok not wanting to play is related to his salary.

- Sivasspor has started negotiations with its player Robinho regarding extending contract with player.

- Fenerbahce are not interested to appoint coach Ersun Yanal as club's head coach.

- Fenerbahce has offered 1.2 million euro to its head coach Phillip Cocu to resign from his position, but Cocu requests 3 million euro.

- Everton player Cenk Tosun could return to Besiktas during mid-season transfer window.

- NewcastleUnited considers to pay 15 million euro for Galatasaray player Garry Rodrigues.

- Fenerbahce head coach Phillip Cocu manager Rob Janssen would have meeting with club to discuss about future of the coach at the team.

- Fenerbahce are interested to appoint coach Laurent Blanc as club's head coach.

- Fenerbahce player Mehmet Topal has been playing with an injury for last 2 months