By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
The story begins from football. Last week, Galatasaray started 11 foreign players in a league game, for the first time in Turkish football history.
The country’s prominent nationalist party MHP’s leader Devlet Bahçeli said: “They should change their Turkish name and nickname because they have no Turkish players.”
Ergin Ataman responded to this criticism from his Twitter account: “I am in Italy for some time these days. Yesterday I watched Olimpia Milano – Fenerbahçe game in EuroLeague. Fenerbahçe‘s important players in Turkish NT (Sinan, Melih and Barış) could not even play for a second.
Therefore, the problem is not with football or just with Galatasaray. We have two choices ahead: Either we accept Turkish sports as it is, or we are going to find a solution to this together.”