Antalyaspor's mission to become a big club is ambitious and yet deluded

The Big Three – Fenerbahce, Galatasaray and Besiktas

The Turkish football landscape is one of the most passionate, historic and diverse ones in Europe. Marked by the typical Eastern European trait of uninhibited fanaticism which often intrudes on the territory of unbridled violence, football in Turkey is no mean business; it unites and divides millions at the same time. And needless to say, the game is centred around the giants of Istanbul – Galatasaray and Fenerbahce.

A rivalry as divisive as the Old Firm in Scotland and as storied as the ones in Buenos Aires, Milan and Belgrade, Turkey’s biggest rivalry transcends football – it is indeed the biggest bragging right for the locals living in one city and two continents, separated by the Bosphorus bridge. Besiktas, the other great team of Istanbul, completes the three-way rivalry, something that is unique to Istanbul.

Barring the three, who have won an astronomical 51 of the 58 Turkish Super Lig titles, the rest of the Turkish clubs have only ever been also-rans. Trabzonspor and Bursaspor have tried to break out of the shackles formed by this hegemony in vain. However, Antalyaspor, one of the newly promoted teams, is gunning to change all that.

“Akrepler” – The Scorpions

Antalyaspor have a fervent fan following and great aspirations

With a capacity of only 7000 odd people in their Stadium, Antalyaspor is one of those rare clubs that has managed to reach the top, in spite of their shortcomings. But, much like the case with SD Eibar in Spain, the numbers do not matter as far as the Akrepler, as they are popularly known, are concerned. With their own group of ultras, the “Genclik 07”, the tiny club, based in the coastal city of Antalya, have some of the most passionate fans in Turkey.

The team still plies its trade in the Akdeniz University stadium, which lies inside the city. With most of the club’s history being based in the lower reaches of Turkish football, Antalyaspor have a chance to turn it all around and replicate the team of fifteen years ago, when they qualified for both the Intertoto and the UEFA Cup.

However, the club’s president Gultekin Gencer, is far more ambitious. He wants the Super Lig and the Europa League to be just stepping stones on the team’s pathway to the upper echelons of European football.

“We’ll set the world on fire!”

Gencer’s first step as President and Chief of Antalyaspor was to commission a new, state-of-the-art, all-seater stadium for the club. With a planned capacity of over 40,000, the New Antalya Stadium can indeed be the next Coliseum of Turkish football. Most of the Italian clubs can take a leaf out of the tiny Turkish team’s book, with almost all of them still being dependent on municipal stadiums to run their clubs.

A former member of the executive committee of the Turkish Football Federation, Gencer’s footballing decisions, however, have shown a certain degree of misplaced zeal and naivety, unlike his corporate ones. And this was more than evident from the hefty statement (quoted above), he made after signing football’s greatest entertainer, Ronaldinho.

The likes of Roman Abramovich, Sheikh Mansour and Nasser Al-Khelaifi have made entrepreneurs look up and take notice of football as a marketable brand and a growing commodity.

However, there have also been projects marred by flawed decisions which outnumber the successful ones – the likes of Anzhi Makhachkala, Malaga and even Queens Park Rangers to a certain extent, bear testament to this. Even Dmitry Rybolovlev stumbled in the dark, with his myopic decisions nearly costing AS Monaco at the beginning of the 2014-15 season.

Ronaldinho and Samuel Eto’o – Well past their prime

Gencer needs to be careful to not follow in the footsteps of the latter group. With the signing of Samuel Eto’o being completed and Ronaldinho on his way, he has made two Hollywood signings, who actually offer very little, other than front page news.

The fact that Samuel Eto’o is on a free fall is no secret. Ever since his fallout with Jose Mourinho at Chelsea and his subsequent move to Everton and Sampdoria, his career has hit one low after another. His much-publicised refusal to take part in the double training conducted by the then Sampdoria coach Sinisa Mihaljovic throws light upon his current temperament and work ethic.

Ronaldinho is another bird of the same feather. Epitomizing the typical, yet infuriating Brazilian trait of nightlife-over-training, the ponytailed legend was a real stone in the neck for his previous club, FC Queretaro.

Whether it be partying on the night of a defeat, or being totally anonymous for large parts of a game, the Brazilian is more of a performer today, than an athlete. Indeed, neither Eto’o nor Ronaldinho can hold their own in the Super Lig unless they buck up. Nor can the fans expect either of them to stay if the fairweather phase pans out to times of hardship.

And this is exactly where Gencer has become a tad delusional. Instead of building a team around the likes of Mehmet Sedef, their captain, or Lamine Diarra, their Senegalese superstar and a cult figure in the Serbian league, the President has shown a perplexing lack of vision, similar to that of You Know Who, Florentino Perez. With the former Camp Nou darlings set to earn an eye-watering amount of money, a hierarchy on the lines of Zidanes y Pavones looks likely to emerge.

But what Perez has going for him is the name of Real Madrid. The Santiago Bernabeu outfit is a global brand, swimming in a pool of wealth, with superstars of the game seeing them as their Promised Land. The likes of Gencer and everybody who failed trying to make headline signings before building a strong team ethic, do not have that comfort.

And with stringent FFP rules in place, Gencer would do well to maintain an austerity check and make more sporting signings in the months ahead. If he doesn’t, the team would be going back to the wilderness soon.

So, while Antalyaspor’s ambition must be applauded, the ends they have chosen to realize their means shouldn’t be.