Turkey defender Merih Demiral will miss his team’s Euro 2024 quarter-final clash with the Netherlands after UEFA suspended him for two games on Friday for making an alleged ultra-nationalist salute, Agence France-Presse reported.
Demiral scored a brace in the 2-1 last 16 win over Austria on Tuesday and during celebrations for his second goal made a gesture associated with Turkish right-wing extremist group Grey Wolves.
UEFA said in a statement Demiral was banned “for violating the basic rules of decent conduct, for using sports events for manifestations of a non-sporting nature and for bringing the sport of football into disrepute.”
Turkey’s sports minister on Friday condemned UEFA’s “unfair” two-match ban for Demiral.
“We condemn UEFA’s unfair and biased decision, which has no legal basis and that we consider to be purely political,” Osman Aşkın Bak wrote on X.
Demiral’s action prompted UEFA to launch a probe for “inappropriate behavior” and sparked condemnation from German leaders, but Ankara immediately branded Berlin’s reaction as “xenophobia.”
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser warned “the symbols of Turkish right-wing extremists have no place in our stadiums.
“Using the European football championships as a platform for racism is completely unacceptable,” she added on X.
Turkish and German foreign ministries summoned each other’s ambassadors this week over the row about Demiral’s salute.
The salute is associated with ultranationalist Turkish organization the Grey Wolves, seen as the paramilitary wing of Turkey’s far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), an ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government.
The ideology of the Grey Wolves is mainly based on Turkish nationalism. Therefore, Kurds, Armenians and other minorities in Turkey have occasionally been their targets.
Since France officially banned the Grey Wolves in 2020, the German government has faced an intensified public campaign in favor of banning the Turkish nationalist group.
Although neither the organization nor the greeting is banned in Germany, the salute is banned in Austria.