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On Saturday, November 1, shocking news from the world of football broke through wherein the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) suspended 149 referees and assistant referees in a betting probe. It is understood that as part of the investigation, the TFF found that hundreds of officials for the professional matches in Turkiye had betting accounts, which led to them leveling a ban on most of them from eight to 12 months depending on circumstances.
As per the report published in BBC Sport, the TFF decided on the length of the ban on the 149 officials on the basis of the “severity of the act” in regards to their betting activity apart from still continuing the investigation into three other officials. For those who want to access the names of the banned officials from Turkish football, they can refer to the list published on the official website of TFF.
One Turkish football match official placed whopping 18,227 bets
A few days ago, the TFF stated that out of 571 professional match officials investigated over the five-year period, they found 371 of them possessing a betting account and 152 of them actively indulging in placing bets on them. The in-depth look into these officials presents an even more shocking picture as one of them had placed a whopping 18,227 bets apart from 42 of them with more than 1,000 bets on professional matches.
The bans have come into effect because of the TFF disciplinary regulations clearly stating that match officials are barred from betting on professional matches just like the players and coaching staff. Many of the big clubs have condemned the acts of the officials, including the likes of Besiktas, Fenerbahce, and Trabzonspor while the TFF President Ibrahim Haciosmanoglu called it a “moral crisis” in Turkish football.
He was quoted as saying to CNN, “There is a moral crisis in Turkish football. There is no such thing as structure. The fundamental problem at the core of Turkish football is an ethical one.”
