On the campaign trail perhaps?

What is happening at the Turkish Daily News? Not since Keith Dearn passed away a few years ago have we had any decent reports about football that doesn't involve the Istanbul teams. Recently though things are definitely getting better and I enjoyed a rather strange report today concerning everyone's favourite big-boned, big eared, big gambling, extremely lazy midfielder Sergen Yalcin.

The unfortunately un-bylined TDN article (was it you Ozgur Korkmaz?) talks about how the very charasmatic, but also just a bit dodgy ("allegedly", according to lawyers for the "The round ball in Ankara"), finance minister Kemal Unakitan has personally stepped in to secure Yalcin for Eskisehirspor who ply their trade in the "Sorry, the number you have phoned is not connected" League A.

Exactly what Unakitan's connection in the transfer of Yalcin from Sekerspor to Eskisehirspor is not exactly spelt out, neither is Yalcin's brief spell on the Ankaragucu books this summer, but the numbers involved are impressive. 1 million TL for Sekerspor, 900,000 TL a year wage for Yalcin and on top of that a 15,000 TL match appearance fee.

These are big figues for a team not in the top flight.

The TDN goes on to explain that the fans of Eskisehir are known for their left-wing tendencies and the interesting sight of all these left-wingers cheering Yalcin and the AKP's Unakitan.

Weird, weird, weird.

And all this for a player who probably should have retired about three years ago. He hardly got a game at Sekerspor last year thanks to all sorts of reasons.

Good luck Eskisehirspor, but don't be surprised when it all ends in tears in about three months time. By the way, are there direct flight links between Eskisehir and Ercan Airport?

So thanks TDN for opening my eyes a little on what is a very strange story and also thank you for not printing a report on the disaster that was yesterday's Australia - Iraq match, unlike Udo Steven Bassey over at Today's Zaman who no doubt had me in mind when he decided to run a piece.