Whistles for sale: Turkey jails its refereeing chief as football's graft scandal widens

The men who decide who officiates Turkey's football matches are now answering to a court. An Istanbul court has placed Ferhat Gundogdu, the head of the Turkish Football Federation's Central Referees Committee, and four others in pre-trial detention as part of a widening corruption investigation, state news agency Anadolu reported on Saturday. Gundogdu and six others appeared before a judge at Istanbul's Caglayan courthouse on Friday over allegations of manipulation of the referee administration process. They face charges including official document forgery, breach of trust and illegal acquisition of personal data. The judge remanded five in custody and granted the other two conditional release. Justice Minister Akin Gurlek said prosecutors are examining claims about "interference in the processes of referee classification, assignments, scoring and appointments, as well as the exams on rules" — in other words, the entire machinery by which referees rise, get chosen for matches, and are evaluated. The scandal is spreading beyond the refereeing committee. On Thursday night, officers from the illegal betting and sports crime unit detained Yasin Kol, a referee in Turkey's top-flight Super Lig, along with an assistant referee. On Tuesday, police searched the VAR room at the federation's headquarters in Istanbul. It comes exactly a year after the federation suspended 149 referees on charges of illegal betting — a purge that was supposed to have cleaned house. "It does seem to be a continuation of 2025, and it looks like it will continue further," sports journalist Ayhan Sensoy, author of the 2024 book "The Gambling Pit", told AFP, adding that federation bosses had little chance of staying in office. Gurlek has denied any link between the current investigation and last year's betting case. The federation itself has not directly addressed the arrests. Its top officials flew home on Saturday after watching Turkey lose 3-0 to Belgium in a Nations League clash in Liege on Friday night — a defeat on the pitch that now looks like the least of Turkish football's problems.