Fenerbahce at a crossroads as Turkish Super Lig gets ready to kick off
The phrase “no pain, no gain” seems to sum up the state of Turkish football as the season approaches. The Super Lig giants are all in transition as financial fair play has forced clubs to address mounting debts and become more sustainable. It will benefit the league but in the short term most clubs will suffer.
Now for the good news: the league is finally producing – and relying on – young, Turkish talent. A lot of it.
Galatasaray pipped Basaksehir to the Super Lig title on the penultimate week last season. Besiktas were involved in the title race until the final three weeks but it is a tale of four clubs in Istanbul and last season it was Fenerbahce’s plight that provided the biggest story.
They finished sixth but it could have been a lot worse. They spent much of the season in the bottom half and were briefly involved in a relegation battle. There has been a lot of schadenfreude around from rival fans, as expected, but it is important to point out Galatasaray also finished sixth in 2015-16 and they were champions two years later.
Fenerbahce have been at the bottom and are on their way up again. Last year Ali Koc, the heir of the wealthiest family in Turkey, replaced the club’s longest-serving president Aziz Yildirim after 20 years in charge but by that point the club had been run into the ground. Debt had spiralled out of control to an astonishing €621m (£574m).
Fenerbahce had faltered where most other Turkish clubs do. Several of the major teams are run on a “foundation club” model – much like Real Madrid and Barcelona – with thousands of members. The problem with that is the fans expect silverware all the time. Club presidents typically get three-year terms and focus on the here and now rather than the future, leading to endemic short-termism.
Koc may be rich but he has his hands tied with regards to using his fortune to fund the club. Koc is not the owner – the members are the owners – and has FFP to contend with.
And in a break with Super Lig tradition he has decided to concentrate on the future of the club. He has started to work on the debt, created a sustainable transfer policy and focused on youth development. It is a risky strategy in a league that does not do patience. It is also a brave move considering it could be his successors, rather than himself, who benefit. “The academy is very important to us,” Koc says. “It’s our priority to produce talent. There are talented players emerging from all over Turkey and we cannot ignore them.”
Koc brought in Damien Comolli as the sporting director and gave him the freedom to decide all the key decisions, including recruitment and the academy. The Frenchman has made 10 signings, spending just €10.4m (£9.5m) bringing in Max Kruse on a free, the club legend Emre Belozoglu and Mathias Jørgensen from Huddersfield, as well as a number of proven Super Lig players.
The key thing is the Yellow Canaries are €5.7m in profit after selling the 19year-old Eljif Elmas for €16m to Napoli. And it is the focus on exciting young talent that is the trend not only at Fenerbahce but the league in general.
The catalysts for this youth movement was FFP and the lifting of the foreign player restrictions in 2015. The market had become distorted. Turkish players were given an unfair advantage as clubs were forced to pay over the odds for players based on their nationality instead of talent.
Demand outweighed supply and Turkish players ended up on extortionate wages and then blocked the path for young talent. Super Lig clubs were lumbered with players no one outside the country would pay significant money to buy. The lifting of the restrictions resulted in players starting to be valued on talent rather than anything else. Domestic players were forced to improve in order to compete with the influx from abroad and with a more even playing field young players were given more of a chance.
FFP has a lot of critics but as far as Turkey is concerned it is one of the best things to happen in years. Super Lig sides have had to become more accountable. It is no coincidence that in the three seasons before 2015 only €4.8m was made from the sale of Turkish players to the top-five European leagues while in the three years after that the figure was €75m. Turkish clubs have been forced into investing in scouting, development and giving young players a chance – and have benefited.
Turkey is teeming with talent and is only scratching the surface. The country has a population of 80 million with the youngest demographic in Uefa. There are millions of players, often from poor backgrounds, desperate to become the next star. And for the first time in years they are being given a chance.
Ozan Kabak was 18-years-old and had played six months of first-team football for Galatasaray when Stuttgart paid €11m for him last January (Schalke went on to sign him for €16m over the summer). Lille purchased Yusuf Yazici from Trabzonspor for €16.5m this summer and then there was the case of Merih Demiral who Juventus snapped up for €18m last month.
The case of Demiral also highlights a problem for Fenerbahce. A childhood fan of the club, Demiral rose through the youth ranks but felt so disenfranchised with his chances of breaking into the first team he left for the Portuguese third-tier three years ago.
And this is the culture Fenerbahce want to change. Comolli has given the
academy an overhaul, set up a scouting network, recruited coaches and installed a data and analysis department. He also brought in talent from the Premier League to oversee the operation, making the former Crystal Palace head of first-team recruitment analyst, Beri Pardo, the head of performance analysis.
It seems to be working. Fenerbahce are nurturing some talented young players and have hired some of the best youth coaches in the country.
Now they have to give them a chance. Recent history has not been that encouraging. The goalkeeping protege Berke Ozer was signed amid high expectations from Altinordu last summer but the 19-year-old made one appearance before being loaned out to Westerlo this summer.
Another example is the 19-year-old wonderkid Ferdi Kadioglu, who turned down several offers to join Fenerbahce from NEC last season but despite already having a season of Eredivisie football under his belt he spent most of his time on the bench.
For the culture at Fenerbahce to change players need to believe there is a pathway from the academy and here Ersun Yanal is in a tough spot. Managers rarely last long in Turkey and while the club has long-term goals, Yanal has his job to worry about.
It is expected he will strike a balance and we will see more young players this season and the number of youngsters coming through should then grow in the coming years. In 2019-20 Kadioglu and the 21-year-old goalkeeper Altay Bayindir given more games.
In order to progress Fenerbahce may have to suffer in the short term. But no side are leaps and bounds above another. The title race has gone down to the wire for the past few seasons and that trend is likely to continue. Do not write anybody off.