Amedspor, a football team from the predominantly Kurdish province of Diyarbakır, has for the first time brought together the president of Turkey’s Football Federation (TFF) and the city’s governor and co-mayors from a pro-Kurdish party around a table, in a development seen as promising by many, given the fact that the football club has been subjected to racist attacks and sanctions in past years.
What makes the meeting of these figures so special is that Amedspor and politicians from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) used to be snubbed by the government and TFF officials, who avoided any encounters with them and refused to attend their matches.
The meeting of TFF President İbrahim Hacıosmanoğlu, Amedspor President Aziz Elaldı, Diyarbakır Co-mayors Serra Bucak and Doğan Hatun and Governor Murat Zorluoğlu took place in Diyarbakır on Sunday evening at a dinner hosted by Amedspor.
Hacıosmanoğlu, who was elected TFF president last month, defeating the federation’s former president, Mehmet Büyükekşi, seen as the favorite of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, promised before the TFF elections that he would travel to Diyarbakır to watch Amedspor’s first home game in its stadium, which will take place against İstanbulspor this evening.
“I want to start [a sprit] of brotherhood there,” Hacıosmanoğlu said.
Amedspor won the TFF’s second-league title last May and was promoted to the TFF 1st League, the second highest level in the Turkish football league system, which led to celebrations in the city as well as concerns about the rise of racially motivated fan violence on the team.
Since it changed its name in 2014 from Diyarbakırspor to Amedspor, as Amed refers to Diyarbakır in Kurdish, Amedspor has faced racist attacks from the fans of other teams and widespread sanctions from the TFF due to its alleged support for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Like Amedspor, DEM Party politicians are also accused of links to the PKK by Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, and its democratically elected mayors face the threat of removal from their posts due to alleged ties to the PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies.
Both Amedspor and the DEM Party deny any links to the PKK and describe the accusations as politically motivated.
Unlike current Diyarbakır Governor Zorluoğlu, former Diyarbakır governors stayed away from Amedspor events and matches and did not release any congratulatory messages about the team’s victories.
Following Sunday’s dinner, Hacıosmanoğlu presented Diyarbakır mayors Bucak and Hatun national team jerseys, each bearing their names and number 21, the city traffic code for Diyarbakır. They later posed for photos with the jerseys.
The photos from the meeting have been widely covered in the Turkish media, with comments suggesting that the government has launched an “Amedspor initiative,” meaning that a reconciliation process has been launched with the team.
Over the past decade, Amedspor has seen attacks on its fans, the arrest of its fans and a years-long ban on its away-game attendance for fans, which was only lifted last May.
Authorities cited security concerns as the reason for the longstanding ban, which according to the fans was unfair and discriminatory.
The controversial ban on Amedspor was imposed in 2016 shortly after the team changed its name in 2014 from Diyarbakırspor to Amedspor.
Amedspor faced the most attacks in matches against Bursaspor in western Turkey.
In the latest episode of tension between the two football clubs, Amedspor players were harassed during a match in Bursa in March 2023. Bursaspor fans threw a variety of objects including knives, bullets and water bottles onto the pitch before the match began, while chanting racist slogans against Kurds.
It is common for Kurds in Turkey to face racist attacks and accusations of links to the PKK, which has been waging a bloody war in the country’s southeast since 1984.