Turkey’s crackdown on insider gambling will expand, prosecutor says

A major investigation into insider betting in Turkey’s football leagues is likely to expand to include coaches, commentators and club presidents, a prosecutor said on Thursday.

Earlier this month, the Turkish Football Federation suspended 149 referees and assistants after an investigation revealed that officials in professional leagues were betting on matches. The net widened last week with the arrest of eight people, including the chairman of a top club, and the suspension of 1,024 players from all competitions who had been banned by the Football Federation (TFF). Matches in the second and third division were suspended for two weeks.

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«We may carry out another operation in the coming days. We definitely want to clean our football,» Istanbul chief prosecutor Akin Gurlek was quoted as saying by NTV and other media on Thursday.

«Whoever was involved in the cheating, we are pursuing them. There will be club presidents and club directors involved in the investigations… There may be links between presidents and referees, coaches and commentators. We are investigating everything.»

Turkey cooperated with European football governing body UEFA and global police body Interpol, Gurlek said. Authorities also monitored Turks suspected of illegal gambling in Montenegro, Cyprus and Georgia.

Gurlek also said his office was awaiting responses from some foreign gambling companies abroad whose platforms were used by Turkish suspects for illegal betting.

There was no immediate comment from the TFF, but its chairman, Ibrahim Haciosmanoglu, has acknowledged a “moral crisis in Turkish football”.

The federation’s own research found that 371 of the 571 referees in Turkey’s professional leagues had gambling accounts.

According to Turkish sports disciplinary rules, a person is banned from the sport indefinitely if he is found to have influenced the outcome and course of a match or to have received some form of payment for this.

If these violations are committed by club administrators, the club will be relegated and those involved risk fines.

Published on November 20, 2025