Amedspor, a football club based in the predominantly Kurdish city of Diyarbakır, has been fined by the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) for displaying a Kurdish-language message on its team jersey despite prior approval from the federation.
The club, which plays in Turkey’s second-tier 1. Lig, featured the logo of the Tezgel Kom company on its jersey, with the Kurdish tagline “Koma me bona we” (“Our group is for you”) displayed beneath it. The team wore this jersey in a Sep 14 match against Pendikspor, two days after the federation granted written approval.
However, following the team’s next match against Sakaryaspor on Sep 21, the federation's Professional Football Disciplinary Board (PFDK) imposed a fine of 110,000 (~2,640 US dollars) liras, citing a violation of equipment regulations.
Amedspor criticized the decision as discriminatory, announcing plans to challenge it in court. The decision "violated the principal of legality, which is fundamental to disciplinary law," the club said in a statement, noting that the federation had previously approved the jersey advertisement.
Despite the fine, the team wore the same jersey its latest match against Sakaryaspor yesterday. Amedspor shared the shirt on social media with a message featuring their sponsor's slogan: "'Our team is for you.' We are not just a club, we are millions of people."
DEM Party condemns fine
The decision drew condemnation from the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party, whose members criticized the federation and brought the issue into the parliamentary agenda.
Tuncer Bakırhan, co-chair of the party, said, “Such a policy of intolerance feeds a social climate where people face racist attacks for speaking Kurdish in public."
"This institutional mindset causes the most harm to efforts for peace," he said, referring to the ongoing initiative to resolve the Kurdish question, where DEM Party is considered an important actor.
Bakırhan called for the decision to be reversed and for a formal apology, adding, “This level of disrespect toward the native language of millions violates democratic principles and social peace.”
Tülay Hatimoğulları, the other co-leader, described the fine as “an attack not just on Amedspor, but on the native language of millions of Kurds.”
Meral Danış Beştaş, a DEM deputy, noted that the slogan is legally trademarked and registered with the Trade Ministry. "Is writing or shouting a slogan in Kurdish a crime? No, it’s the native language of 20 million people in this country," she wrote on social media. “TFF’s role is not to ban the use of native languages, but to strengthen the unifying spirit of sports. Language is identity, not a crime.”
DEM deputy Serhat Eren submitted a written inquiry today to Youth and Sports Minister Osman Aşkın Bak, demanding answers to 12 questions about the issue. These include the legal basis for penalizing a previously approved slogan, whether similar penalties have been imposed on other clubs, and whether the ministry plans to address concerns about discrimination based on language.
Eren pointed to the contradiction between the federation’s written approval and the subsequent penalty, asking whether the slogan’s trademark registration was disregarded. His inquiry also referenced a joint statement by 16 bar associations, which condemned the decision as targeting the native language of millions and called for safeguards against discriminatory practices. (VK)
