Turkey Soccer Fans Threaten Broadcast Boycott Amid Club Spat

(Bloomberg) -- Turkish soccer fans began an online campaign to boycott the national league's official broadcaster BeIN Sports after an Istanbul-based club clashed with authorities over spending limits on player transfers.

The call from fans of Fenerbahce became the top trending topic on Twitter in Turkey on Tuesday after groups with more than 2.2 million followers on the social media platform started posting #beinsportsiptal, a slogan calling for the cancellation of TV subscriptions.

Fenerbahce fans are angry over the cap on how much the club can spend on players imposed by the national football federation to reduce debt levels, and appear to be targeting the broadcaster as a way of applying pressure on top officials inside the sport body.

“Turkish football is long suffering from political manipulation,” Erinc Yeldan, an economy professor at Ankara-based Bilkent University and a Fenerbahce fan, said by phone. Yeldan said he had canceled his subscription to Digiturk.

Turkish Lira Slide Puts Soccer Season Broadcast in Jeopardy

There's a lot at at stake for 21 soccer teams set to compete in Turkey's Super Lig next season as the broadcaster's $500 million a year pledge is their main source of income. Fenerbahce, which has over 20 million fans, is estimated to account for a chunk of 1.2 million Turkish subscribers to BeIN's sports channels. But the solution to the current conflict might fall beyond the broadcaster's remit.

The Turkish Football Federation, known as TFF, announced a 32% cut to Fenerbahce's spending limits for next season, leaving little financial room for the team to attract the talented players it needs to win trophies.

The cut is part of a drive by the TFF to reduce the size of loans on Turkish clubs' books after their bank debt reached 10 billion liras ($1.45 billion) at the end of last year, about twice as much as what they are worth.

“The spending limit set by the Turkish Football Federation is unacceptably nonsense and unimplementable,” Fenerbahce said in a statement on its website. “Our liabilities for our existing players for 2020/21 season is well above the federation's limit of 18.8 million euros ($22.2 million).”

This means the club won't be able to do transfers for the upcoming season, it said, adding that Fenerbahce will soon announce steps against the limit. Fenerbahce shares fell as much as 8.9% on Wednesday, the most since April 15, to 12.83 liras.

Caught In-Between

Spending limits announced for each club by the soccer federation “has absolutely nothing to do” with the broadcaster, Qatari-owned BeIN's Turkish arm Digiturk said when asked to comment on the boycott campaign.

“Digiturk is the biggest and longest standing investor in Turkish football,” agreeing to pay the last season's fees in full despite the financial fallout from the pandemic, it said.

BeIN Freezes Payments for Suspended Top Turkish Soccer Games

The relationship between the TFF and Fenerbahce went downhill after the club's efforts to restructure part of its outstanding bank debt of 2 billion liras at end-February through fresh loans failed to get the authorities' approval.

Instead, the TFF wants Fenerbahce to cut a deal similar to what Istanbul rivals Galatasaray and Besiktas did under a framework supported by the government.

“If Fenerbahce makes a restructuring deal with lenders, their spending limit will increase,” Nihat Ozdemir, the federation's chief, told Bloomberg. “Alternatively, they should increase their income through sponsorships and player sales.”

The restructuring plan pushed by Ozdemir would make it impossible for clubs to make repayments after the two-year grace period expires, Fenerbahce's Chairman Ali Koc said in January.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.