Ankaragucu eye move for Guraslan and Bangura !

According to Sporyolu, Ankaragucu will offer contracts to both Furkan Guraslan and Bangura if the transfer ban is lifted. Guraslan has impressed while on trial from SC Lustringen in Germany. Meanwhile Bangura has joined the Ankaragucu training camp in Antalya today from Istanbul BBS youth team. Only information we have on Bangura is that he comes from Guinea.

In other news, Mehmet Yiginir will tomorrow at 10am hold a press conference in the Rixos hotel to announce weather he will run for president. Lets hope for some good news for a change. Yiginir also spoke of his wish to have three thousand members of the club by the end of the year, and then five thousand the following year.

Stay tune tomorrow for all the latest news !

Ankaragucu 3-3 Hatayspor !

A 6 goal thriller in Antalya today as Ankaragucu drew 3-3 with Hatayspor. Goals came from Bilal Gulden, Gokhan Erdogan and Timur Ozgoz. Thats 8 goals in the last two games for Ankaragucu but those defensive problems are still there and need to be addressed.

In other news, It is still unclear weather Mehmet Yiginir will be come President of the club at Sundays congress. He has still not received the backing from Melih Gokcek although a meeting has been scheduled for Sunday morning according to Klasspor.

The transfer ban is no closer to being lifted, intact just today it was said that the management team have come up against a few problems and need more money than expected to lift the ban. Also Baba Diame has left the training camp in Antalya and has flown to France to sign for a French team. Muhammed Turkmen has also had his contract canceled by the club.

Ankaragucu 5-2 Bucaspor !

Ankaragucu took on Bucaspor in their second winter break game today in Antalya. Sol Kapali were there to cheer on the team and there were also members of Avrupali Guculer. The game ended 5-2 to Ankaragucu with the goals coming from Umut Nayir, Mert Erdogan, Furkan Guraslan, Bilal Gulden and Timur Ozgoz.

Team - Bayram, Enes, Gurkan, Aytac, Kaan, Mert, Bilal, Serkan, Timur, Furkan, Umut

Subs - Gokhan, Bilal Gundogdu, Ahmet, Mehmet, Eren, Baba, Orhan

I found out a bit more about Baba Diame the French player we have on trial. He is of African descent and has been playing with Alcoron B team who are a Spanish first division club. He plays as a striker and as you can see from the picture above is a big powerful lad.

Damon sent me a link from Sporanki today which claims the club will name all its members as it looks to be more transparent in the running of the club. Mehmet Yiginir is also at the clubs training camp in Antalya and handed out one thousand Turkish Lira between the players.

Erzincan Refahiyespor 2-1 Ankaragucu

Ankaragucu lost 2-1 today in their first friendly in Antalya over the winter break. Teoman Erkan scored the only goal in a disappointing result against the local side. We can't read to much into a friendly match but it just shows how much the club needs to bring new players in especially with the sale of Umit Kurt and Sinan Kurumus.

News broke tonight that the congress has been postponed and will now take place on the 13th of January with the possibility that it will be moved to the 20th January. According to an interview with Orhan Sal, Mehmet Yiginir will wait until he speaks with Melih Gokcek tomorrow or Monday before making his decision on weather he will run for President.

Melih Gokcek has already stated he wouldn't recommend anyone to become Ankaragucu president so it remains to be seen if his close friend can convince him to change his mind.

Vleminckx Finishes Season at Gençlerbirligi

    © ap.

After the winter stop Björn Vleminckx will no longer play for FC Bruges. The Belgium club will loan the 27-year-old, and former topscorer of the Dutch League, to Turkish Gençlerbirligi.

Björn Vleminckx travelled to Turkey himself to negotiate a possible transfer. The negotiations have now been positively concluded hence the 27-year-old striker will play half a year for Gençlerbirligi.

Capa and Nilis

Gençlerbirligi - a Turkish football club with Belgian influences. The Belgian-Turkish coach Fuat Capa is trainer of the squad, Luc Nillis is his assistant.  After 17 match-days Gençlerbirligi ranks eleventh in the Süper Lig. The club also strengthened itself with Serbian midfielder Nemanja Tomic (24). He was taken over from Partizan Belgrado.

Vleminckx hopes to play more in Turkey because at FC Bruges he had fallen from grace with coach Garrido. At his employer he ranked third in hierarchy after Carlos Bacca and Mohamed Tchité. In 2011 the Belgians took Vleminckx for 3,3 million Euro from N.E.C Nijmegen where he was topscorer (23 goals) in the Eredivisie (Dutch Premier League).

3 Trialists arrive at Ankaragucu training camp !

The Ankaragucu facebook page today confirmed that three trialists have joined the clubs training camp in Antalya. The team will spend the winter break in the golf resort in Belek while staying at the Arcadia hotel.

French striker Baba Diame along with 2 German born Turks Kerim Avci (pictured above) and Furkan Guraslan joined the rest of the team today and Diame will stay with the club for the next month. The french striker Diame is an unknown quantity but likely to come from African origin.

Kerim Avic is playing with Rott Weiss Essen in the German regional league and is a 23 year old  attacking midfielder. Furkan Guraslan is 24 years old and also plays in midfield. In recent years there have been a lot of success for Turkish teams signing German born Turks from German lower leagues.  Three years ago Ankaragucu had Cenk Tosun on trial before he signed for Gaziantepspor. Ankaragucu have also had success with Timur Ozgoz and Ishak Dogan.

Its going to be a busy January in terms of rumours and players coming and going, but it all counts for nothing if we cant lift the transfer ban. A bit of good news tonight as Ankaragucu will receive 55 thousand Lira due to Gokhan Akkan playing with the Turkish National youth team. Well done Gokhan !

Ankaragucu close to removing transfer ban !

After all the heartbreak and disappointment in the last couple of years, there looks to be some good news on the horizon at Ankaragucu. Although past experience teaches us not to get carried away, the interview tonight with Atilla Suslu certainly gives us some hope that the club are moving in the right direction off field.

I would also like to add what a fantastic job Atilla Suslu has done in his short time in charge. If and its a big if Ankaragucu can come out of this mess then he can take all the credit. It really is refreshing to have someone like him in charge of the club. The following statements were all made tonight by Atilla Suslu and thanks to the official Ankaragucu Facebook page for breaking the news.

* After very positive discussions the club are very close to removing the transfer ban. It has been agreed the club will pay 1.5 Million Lira instead of the 7.5 Million that was supposed to be paid.

* The club will pay outstanding payments to Umit Sozen, Muhammet Hanifi, Darius Vassell, Baki Mercimek and Fatih Tekke.

* Timur Ozgoz has confirmed he wont be going to Adana Demirspor and wants to stay at the club.

* Genclerbirligi, Bursaspor and Fenerbahce have all confirmed they will help Ankaragucu by sending players on loan for free.

* Trabzonspor general manager Sadri Sener also said he will send Paulo Henrique to the club on loan as well as other young players if the ban is lifted.

* Augustine Ahinful who now works with the Ghana FA, will send players from Ghana to the club

* Mustafa Kaplan has a list of 15 players he wants, names mentioned are Murat Aykuz from Karsiyaka, Cihan Yilmaz from Boluspor and Kemal Aslan from Denizlispor. Also linked to the club are Kursat Duymus from Akhisar and former Ankaragucu striker Jaba who is with Antalyaspor.

Exciting times indeed, but lets not get carried away as we have been disappointed to many times in the past. The one that im most excited about above is the possible signing of Paulo Henrique from Trabzonspor.