Fenerbahçe, one of Turkey's largest sports clubs, has come under fire from nationalist circles after announcing a stadium naming rights agreement with US-based food company Chobani, founded by Kurdish entrepreneur Hamdi Ulukaya.
New signage displaying the name “Chobani Stadium Fenerbahçe Şükrü Saracoğlu Sports Complex,”named after Turkey's former PM who served as its president for 16 years throughout the 1930s and the 50s, was installed at the club's stadium, marking the beginning of the partnership.
Chobani, known for its Greek-style strained yogurt, was founded in 2005 by Ulukaya, originally from Turkey and left the country under political pressure. The company played a key role in popularizing Greek yogurt in the US and has since grown into a major brand.
Following the announcement, nationalist football fans voiced criticism on social media, pointing to the founder’s Kurdish background. Some posts even featured images merging Fenerbahçe’s logo with that of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militant group.
Fans also mocked the company’s name, linking it to Kobanî, a Kurdish town in northern Syria that became symbolic of Kurdish forces’ fight against ISIS during the Syrian war.
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Fenerbahçe’s agreement with Chobani is set to begin in the forthcoming 2025–2026 season and will span five years, with the option to extend for an additional five, the state-run Anadolu Agency (AA) reported. The club stated it will receive 10 million euros annually in sponsorship revenue under the deal.
The announcement comes at a time when Turkey is pursuing a renewed Kurdish peace initiative. On Jul 11, the PKK held a symbolic ceremony marking the start of its disarmament process marking an end to the 40-year armed struggle.
Fenerbahçe President Ali Koç is known to have good relations with Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), a key government ally who initiated the process in October.
Notably, Chobani has no investments in Turkey or Europe.
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Ulukaya's background
Hamdi Ulukaya was born in 1972 in İliç, a district in the eastern province of Erzincan, to a Kurdish family originally from Elazığ. His grandfather was a leader of the Şavak tribe, a large Kurdish tribe in the region. The family raised sheep and goats and produced cheese and yogurt on their own farm by the Euphrates River.
Ulukaya studied political science at Ankara University before moving to the US in 1994 to learn English at Adelphi University in Long Island, New York.
In 2005, he purchased an old yogurt factory in Upstate New York and launched Chobani. The company quickly rose to become a leading yogurt brand in the US, surpassing 1 billion dollars in annual sales by 2011.
According to a 2014 report by Habertürk, Ulukaya donated 2 million dollars to the Syrian town of Kobanî during the ISIS attacks. “We will either watch the massacre there or do something to save those people,” he was quoted as saying. (VK/TY)
