By David Gold
January 5 – Almost 57,000 women and children have watched Turkish league football this season for free, the country’s Football Federation (TFF) has claimed.
They launched a project to give women and children free entrance to Spor Toto Super League matches five weeks into the new season, and in the 13 rounds of fixtures since, 56,546 have attended.
The week after the initiative was launched, 2,868 supporters gathered to watch the clash between Trabzonspor and Galatasaray, the highest number for a single match.
The TFF is covering the costs of clubs by paying them at the end of the season for the value of the tickets.
National team games have also been included in the projects, which was launched to help improve the image of Turkish football, as well as to prevent violence.
Another change made by the TFF to restore the league’s image is the introduction of a play off involving the top four teams at the end of the season to decide who wins the title.
Turkish football has been tainted by an ongoing investigation into match fixing in the country, which has implicated the champions Fenerbahçe and a number of other teams, alleged to have manipulated the results of up to 19 games in the league last season.
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