Scandals roll on

Scandals aplenty nowadays in Turkish football what with investigations launched into Denizlispor and now Ankaragucu are facing some pretty serious allegations.

Afraid this is a few days out of date due to my concentrating on other scandals but as I doubt there are any other English-language websites out there with the news... better late than never. By the way, thanks Spine for pointing this story out to me.

Ibrahim Seten from Vatan newspaper has splashed in the last few days allegations by the former chairman of Samsunspor that Ankaragucu offered to "sell" a game.

For some stupid reason I can't find the actual Vatan article but it has been reprinted on a number of Turkish websites such as here and here.

The gist of it is that Mehmet Kemal Unsal, a member of the Turkish Football Federation Board, told the then chairman of Samsunspor, Adnan Olmez, that Ankaragucu were prepared to throw a match in return for a whole lot of money.

It was four weeks until the end of the season and Ankaragucu were safe from relegation and Samsunspor were facing the drop and needed points badly.

The deal on offer, according to Olmez, was that Samsunspor would pay 250 billion as that is the bonus payments Ankaragucu gives its players for a win, 200 billion which would be distributed amongst four Ankaragucu players, 235 billion to compensate for what the Football Federation awards a team for a win, and 30 billion for the referee. All up 715 billion lira, or around 500,000 U.S. dollars.

Olmez's response was that if he had that sort of money spare his team wouldn't be facing relegation. He refused but Samsunspor still won it 2-1. It wasn't enough for Samsunspor, however, and they were indeed relegated at the end of the season.

Now the offer was made by Unsal, a member of the TFF board but who had been closely involved with Ankaragucu before being elected to the board. Also present at the meeting, according to Olmez was the former head of the Central Referees Committee.

So far all very fishy.

Ankaragucu Chairman Cemal Aydin has come out furiously denying the allegations saying he will take Olmez to court.

Aydin is most probably telling the truth. The allegations are made against Unsal making the offer, not Aydin.

Which leaves us with Mr. Unsal himself. All I will say is that I agree with a headline in today's Hurriyet newspaper. "Mehmet Kemal Unsal: Speak"

So far, not a word from Unsal, nor from his boss TFF President Haluk Ulusoy.

In the end though I can't see Ankaragucu getting found guilty of anything. Unlike in the Denizlispor case there is no hard evidence, just allegations made by the former chairman of a team which was relegated.