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You are your own worst enemy
Therefore, we would be doing a great injustice to Turkish soccer if we did not loudly speak out against the unruly incidents that took place during the Diyarbakırspor-Bursaspor match at the Diyarbakır Atatürk Stadium on Saturday.
There are political connotations underneath what happened in Bursa six months ago and what happened in Diyarbakır on Saturday. These we are not going to discuss here because this is not the page to discuss politics. All we can say is that these rowdy and violent acts bring soccer into disrepute and thus cannot be condoned or tolerated whenever or wherever they occur.
Soccer is the most popular sport on the face of the earth because it is considered a game. It breaks racial barriers and is also above politics. It is not a war, so soccer stadiums should not be considered battlefields.
Diyarbakırspor Chairman Çetin Sümer tried hard to exonerate his stone-throwing fans and put the blame on others, saying, “They [the Diyarbakırspor fans] were provoked.”
What Mr. Sümer should understand is that there is no justification for the actions of the Diyarbakırspor fans in the UEFA or FIFA rule books. And so whatever the provocation, the Diyarbakırspor fans had no right to act that way. The “innocent” Diyarbakırspor, by taking the wrong course of action, has now become “guilty.”
Since Bursaspor fans were barred from Saturday’s match, Diyarbakırspor should have been attracting banner headlines here, there and everywhere if its fans had “forgiven” and “forgotten” what happened in Bursa last year and had welcomed the Bursaspor players with open arms.
Diyarbakırspor would have been the epitome of fair play and sportsmanship if its fans had only cheered their team on and refrained from throwing projectiles and other objects onto the pitch.
But we are only crying over spilled milk. “What’s done cannot be undone,” Shakespeare says in “Macbeth.”
“You are your own worst enemy,” they say. So what have the Diyarbakırspor fans gained from their rowdy behavior? Practically nothing!
But they have so much to lose. Cash-strapped Diyarbakırspor, operating on a shoestring budget, was already heading for relegation. Now it will definitely be declared a 3-0 loser of Saturday’s match because the referee called off the game in the 17th minute. It will be ordered to play several matches behind closed doors, thereby losing its fans and the gate revenue it badly needs. And without fan support, Diyarbakırspor will likely lose all of those matches.
As things now stand, Diyarbakırspor is almost certainly heading back to the Bank Asya League 1 (division two) from whence it came this season. And perhaps the Diyarbakırspor fans have unknowingly done what they should never ever have done: put the final nail in the coffin of their beloved team.
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