Sawt Falasteen - Turkey orders arrest of 29 footballers in betting scandal

Among the players, 27 are suspected of having bet on matches involving their own teams, the public prosecutor's office said in a statement.

One was Metehan Baltaci, who plays for reigning Turkish champions Galatasaray, it said. Earlier this month, he had been suspended for nine months over the betting scandal.

The investigation has rocked Turkish football, with six referees placed in pre-trial detention on November 10, along with the president of Eyupspor, a club in Turkey's top Super Lig division.

Prosecutors did not identify the other 26 players suspected of bets involving their own teams, but said Mert Hakan Yandas, who plays for Fenerbahce, another major Istanbul club, had placed bets through someone else's account.

The prosecutor's office said police had so far detained 35 of the 46 people named in the arrest order. Five were known to be currently abroad, it said.

- Zero goal attempts -

Two club presidents were among those targeted by the order for "attempting to influence the outcome" of a match between their two third-division teams in the 2023-2024 season, the statement said.

The match had caught the attention of investigators because neither side had even made one attempt to score a goal, Turkish media reported, with several newspapers saying that was where the entire investigation began.

Six other suspects, one of them a player, are accused of conspiring to influence the result of a second-division clash between Umraniyespor and Giresunspor in December 2023.

A first-division referee, the ex-president of second-division side Adana Demirspor, and a well-known football commentator and his wife were also targeted for "suspect financial transactions" in their bank accounts.

So far, the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) -- which has said it wants to "clean up" the beautiful game in Turkey -- has suspended more than 1,000 players, 25 of them from the Super Lig, with the sanctions ranging from 45 days to 12 months.

Only one was a foreign national -- Konyaspor's Senegalese winger Alassane Ndao, who was suspended for 12 months.

In October, the TFF suspended nearly 150 referees for betting on matches, all of whom have since been dismissed.

L.AbuTayeh--SF-PST