Besitkas banned after Turkish Cup drama with Fenerbache
If you live for drama, then this one’s for you. FirstTouch shared stories about Mamelodi Sundowns’ unthinkable 24-0 win against Powerlines FC, the gun incident, banishment of players etc. and today’s no different. We zoomed into Turkey to understand the buzz around the Fenerbahce and Besiktas game that took place on Thursday. Besiktas refused to show up for the resumption of semifinal cup tie against Fenerbahce. The match was originally abandoned last month due to violence from the crowd and they had rescheduled it for May 3, 2018. The match was in the 57th minute before the head coach of Besiktas was attacked by some fans. Senol Gunes was struck by an object that was thrown from the stands and it hit his head. The coach was rushed to the hospital only to get 5 stitches in the head because of that violent scene. The match was supposed to resume from the 57th minute behind closed doors and Fenerbahce were fined £175,000 by the Turkish Football Federation (TFF). In addition to that, their stadium was closed to supporters for three matches.
Besiktas regret the decision of defaulting the match and they tried to overturn it in court but their appeal was rejected on Wednesday. The match was recorded as a forfeit and Fenerbahce are through to the final by default. They will play Akhisarspor in the final. What an odd thing to happen in football. A team decides not to show up for a match. We might not know the reasons behind this but we can clearly see the impact on them as they have been ordered to pay back the £700,000 they earned from the competition this year as well as being banned from competing in that tournament next year.
