By Andrew Warshaw
October 2 – With a sense of inevitability, Turkey’s media have reacted furiously to last week’s failure to land the 2024 European Championships, taking particular aim at UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin.
UEFA’s secret ballot process meant that theoretically it was far less compromising to do backroom deals and that’s exactly what the Turkish press accused Ceferin, who has prided himself on transparency since coming to power, of doing.
Attacking what it described as ‘Ceferin’s dirty bargain’, the pro-government Daily Sabah said the UEFA boss “used his power in an unethical way in favour of Germany,” claiming he specifically targeted five unnamed members of UEFA’s executive committee to switch their support at the last moment.
So far, Turkish officials have made no public comment over their crushing 12-4 defeat (their bid team chief had predicted it would be extremely close) and have left it to the media to speculate on the reasons for Turkey’s painful fourth defeat.
In a country where freedom of expression invariably means supporting the regime, another publication close to the Turkish government, Yeni Safak, fumed somewhat excessively: “UEFA gave its support to racism.”
The paper was referring to Germany’s Mesut Ozil, who has Turkish roots, quitting the national team in the wake of the furore over being photographed with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
“UEFA was expected to take a stance against racism and discrimination but did the exact opposite and gave the event to Germany, which has been under the shadow of racism,” the paper declared even though there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that the Ozil row played any part in the result of the ballot.
The handing of the tournament to Germany came just as Erdogan arrived in the country for talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel aiming to heal rifts between the pair.
But that didn’t stop several publications from accusing Ceferin of “stabbing us in the back” recalling that the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) had backed the Slovenian for UEFA president back in the 2016 election.
“We lost it in one night,” claimed Hürriyet, accusing Ceferin of swaying committee members the night before Thursday’s vote so that an apparent 9-7 advantage for Turkey turned into a 12-4 loss with one abstention
By backing Germany, the daily wrote, Ceferin wanted to “strengthen his bid” for re-election next February while Vatan said the TFF would withdraw its support for the Slovenian president next time round.
“UEFA has betrayed a vision to carry European football into new regions. Shame,” commentator Ersin Düzen wrote.
Contact the writer of this story at andrew.warshaw@insideworldfootball.com