The Birth of Football in Turkey

What do you think is the most-watched and most lucrative thing in Turkey/Türkiye today? Is it movies? TV shows? While there’s no doubt that movies and series command huge audiences and serious money, there is something else that sits right alongside them—or perhaps even towers above them—and that is football. Despite its immense popularity, football isn’t actually a Turkish sport. If you look at the founding dates of Turkish clubs, you’ll see that this story really began in the early 20th century. This begs the question: How did football find its way into Türkiye/Turkey? Well, it has a truly fascinating history.

Setting Up the Nets in Thessaloniki and İzmir

During the final 15 years of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire was forced to open its doors to European nations. Gradually, the number of British residents in the country began to rise. At the time, this wasn’t considered an occupation. Football was a British sport, and as their numbers grew, Turks began to get a closer look at the British lifestyle. Naturally, football was part of that package. The British had every intention of settling down here. With the expectation of staying for the long haul, they brought their way of life with them and established a football club in İzmir. That club was made up entirely of British citizens. As for Thessaloniki, that was where football first appeared in Turkey as a form of leisure, again thanks to the British. At that time, it was forbidden for Turks to play, but the football fever had already begun to spread.

The First Football Club

This football fever grew big enough to bypass Ottoman prohibitions. Before long, Fuad Hüsnü Bey and Reşat Danyal Bey managed to dodge the authorities and founded the first club under an English name: “Black Stocking.” Black Stocking is, in fact, the precursor to today’s Fenerbahçe. Of course, it would still be a while before it adopted that name.

In 1901, Black Stocking played a match against a team of Greeks at Papazın Çayırı, marking the first match played by a “Turkish” club. However, Black Stocking didn’t last long. Within the same year, it was discovered that Turks were playing, and the club was shut down. In the meantime, the British and Greeks jointly founded the Kadıköy Football Club, which technically held the title of the first official club in Istanbul. As time went on, the number of teams began to increase.

Galatasaray Enters the Arena

Following this, the Istanbul Football League was established in 1903 with the participation of those same teams. The founding of a football league in Istanbul was the first sign that the sport would become even more widespread in Turkey. By then, playing football wasn’t quite as taboo for Turks as it had been two years prior. Turkish youth began to think, “Why don’t we start our own football team?” In 1905, students from Mekteb-i Sultani—known today as Galatasaray High School—founded Galatasaray under the leadership of Ali Sami Yen. Galatasaray joined the Istanbul League in the 1905-1906 season, and by winning their first championship in 1907-1908, they signaled a new beginning for Turkish football history. Once Fenerbahçe and Beşiktaş followed suit, Turkish football began to evolve into something entirely new.

The issue was that Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe, and Beşiktaş still weren’t playing against each other or other Turkish teams. They were constantly playing against foreign teams, and the players were always communicating in English on the pitch.

The First Match in Turkish Football

At that time, Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray weren’t exactly strangers. Ali Sami Yen and Ziya Bey both wanted their players to face each other, shoulder to shoulder. Through their mutual efforts, the two clubs were set to meet. The Fenerbahçe players arrived on the pitch first. When Ali Sami Yen and his team arrived, a conversation took place that felt incredibly special for that moment.

When Ziya Bey said, “Selamun aleyküm, Ali Sami Bey,” and Ali Sami Yen replied with a smile, “Aleyküm selam,” it marked the first time a match was played entirely in our own language, stripped of English. Even though Galatasaray won that day, it was really Turkish football that emerged victorious.

Turkish Football During the Occupation

While Turkish football gained speed and strength between 1905 and 1915, the Ottoman Empire was losing ground. During this period, Mehmet Sabri Bey, a former member of the Committee of Union and Progress, was in the Fenerbahçe management. He would later serve as the Minister of Agriculture in Turkey. Galatasaray, meanwhile, had fallen a bit into the background. It’s worth noting that up until 1915, there was a clear Galatasaray dominance. After that period, it’s fair to say that the occupation era was when Fenerbahçe truly rose to prominence. With the end of World War I in 1918, Galip Bey—who had begun playing for Fenerbahçe in its earliest years and was truly its most significant figure—returned from the war and was reintroduced to football under the leadership of Mehmet Sabri Bey. Fenerbahçe gained momentum this way, but the league was overflowing with Greek and British teams, and the British clubs were quite successful.

Around that same time, the British entered Istanbul and largely took control of the administration. While Mustafa Kemal was preparing the resistance movement, Turkish teams were looking to resist through football. Here, we shouldn’t forget clubs like Altınordu, alongside Fenerbahçe, Galatasaray, and Beşiktaş.

Naturally, the British pressure of that era spilled over into football as well; so much so that Mehmet Sabri Bey was even arrested. Ultimately, with the success of the liberation movement led by Mustafa Kemal, Turkish football finally belonged to the Turks. Before leaving, the occupying forces organized the “General Harrington Cup”—named after the British General Harrington—as a show of strength and a gesture to maintain cordial relations. Fenerbahçe faced the Coldstream Guards in this match and won the cup. Thanks to this victory, the league was finally purged of those foreign teams, and by 1921, the Friday League belonged entirely to the Turks.

The film “Zaferin Rengi” (The Color of Victory), which was released recently, captures the spirit of football during the occupation and Fenerbahçe’s impressive victory in the General Harrington Cup. We recommend this film to anyone who wants to get a closer look at that era, as it vividly portrays the struggle of Turkish football against foreign powers and the spirit of resistance behind that win.

References and Further Reading

Originally published in Turkish at Doğa Filozofu.