A footballer from Turkey’s third-tier club, Amed SK, could be in trouble for slashing opponent players with a razor blade during the game.
It was indeed a horrific sight for the fans as they saw the drama unfold in the Turkish football’s third-tier game between Amed SK and Sakaryaspor.
Mansur Calar, the midfielder from Amed SK, brought a razor blade on the field as the teams lined up for the game and used it repeatedly on the opponent players to slash them.
Calar proceeded to attack Ferhat Yazgan first, walking behind him and taking a quick swipe. However, the footballer didn’t end here.
He attacked another player – this time, aiming for his neck.
Yazgan took to Instagram to post about the injury he sustained from the razor blade attack by Mansur Calar.
He wrote, “These football players who put [sic] the field, TFF [Turkish Football Federation], I hope you’ll see them.”
Calar denied carrying a razor blade, but admitted that he intentionally attacked Yazgan.
“I have nothing in the game. Ferhat Yazgan, captain of Sakaryaspor, says hello to the referees, but he doesn’t salute our team. So I poked him by being mad at him. I didn’t have any cutting material. He has no reaction,” Calar said.
While fans are shocked and justifiably against Mansur Calan, even calling for a lifetime ban on the footballer, his club Amed SK seem unapologetic about his behaviour. The team was attacked by Sakaryaspor fans during the match and in the dressing room, and criticised their treatment of the visitors on club’s official Twitter handle.
“You didn’t say a word to the people who attacked our locker room in the first game, and you ignored us when we were on broadcast on the World TV,” a tweet from the club read.
In another tweet, they instead praised Mansur Calar.
“When you won the match, you started to slander and scribble propaganda on our player Mansur Calar. Mansur Calar is the pride of our Amedspor,” wrote Amed SK.
They even proceeded to tweet a rather concerning message regarding the incident.
“The people who have dirty propaganda about our player Mansur Calar are going to pay for it,” the club wrote.
But this is not the first time when the club landed in controversy.
The football club has been making troubles for the Turkish football association ever since 2014, when it changed its name from Diyarbakır.
The new name signifies the club’s Kurdish identity. Their fans are banned from travelling to away games, and the game against Sakaryaspor marked the 65th game following the ban. The Kurdish flags are also banned in the stadium.
Their fans attempted to sneak in for an away game soon after the ban was imposed and even succeeded in entering inside the stadium. However, their loyalties were exposed after they celebrated Amed SK’s goal in the game, which was followed by clashes between both the sets of fans.
One of the club’s players, Deniz Naki was banned for 12 games in 2016 after he expressed public support to a far-left militant and political group PKK. His support came following Amed SK’s famous victory over Bursaspor in the Turkish Cup.
TFF conducted further raids on the club’s office after the win.
After Mesut Ozil announced his retirement from the international team after the World Cup last year, Deniz Naki wrote a letter to the former German midfielder, asking him to take a stand on the racism in Turkey.
“In your statement, you are justified in responding the racism you have encountered and your reasons for leaving the national team. But why you are not showing this response when there are more and more racist and fascist attacks in Turkey on me, and on other Kurdish-background or minority footballers?” Naki wrote.
“You are saying that the statements of the DFB are wrong. In Turkey, the career of a football player was ended. A peace-supporting human was branded a terrorist. What is your reaction to this?
“People died. To prevent people from dying, I have called several times for peace, They were Kurdish children, mother, and youth that died, Kurdish cities that were destroyed.
“I didn’t want people to die, I want them to live. Those who will welcome you with open arms in your next trip to Turkey, are the same persons, who carried out racists attacks against me. There should be no distinction between fascists, they are the same, in every country.”
