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A remarkable story coming out of Turkey saw the boss of Turkish football club Trabzonspor, lock away four match officials inside the stadium overnight since the referee failed to award his team a penalty during a Turkish League game against Gaziantepspor on Wednesday. The game ended in a 2-2 draw.
Ibrahim Haciosmanoglu, the president of Trabzonspor, enraged with the referee for denying the side a penalty in the dying moments of the game, instructed stadium security personnel to detain all the four match officials until he arrived at the club. Accordingly the officials were made to stay at the stadium until the early hours of Thursday.
Making matters worse for the detained officials, angry supporters and fans of the club gathered outside the stadium seemingly to confront the officials and vent out their frustration.
Help finally arrived for the understandably distraught match officials but in the form of none other than Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan. Only after the intervention of the President were the officials allowed to leave the stadium under the escort of Turkish Special forces. Haciosmanoglu was heard saying that he had a ‘bond of love and respect’ for President Erdogan.
"I told (stadium security) not to let the referees leave until the morning, until I arrived (at the stadium), but a very important person [Erdogan] called me and asked me not to cause embarrassment in Turkey and around the world, but he promised the (penalty) incident would be investigated," Haciosmanoglu said in a television interview with Dogan news agency.
Trabzonspor are currently ninth in the Turkish Super Lig with 14 points from 10 matches.
The Turkish Football Federation has opened an investigation into the incident.
"This unlawfulness cannot be justified by any erroneous referee decision and has caused deep discomfort in the whole football world ... All efforts will be made to ensure that the related persons be tried not only under sports law but also criminal law," the federation said in a statement on Thursday.
Haciosmanoglu got himself to deeper trouble as he was reported to have made sexist comments when he was talking to the media after the detained officials were released.
"If we're going to die, we'll die like men, we won't live like women. No one has the power to make us live like women," he said.
"To live like a woman" duly became a top trending topic on Twitter.
"I guess what he understands about manhood is only threats and contempt. He doesn't have either the honour or virtue to live like a woman. He could not even be the fingernail of a woman," Aylin Nazliaka, a lawmaker for the main opposition Republican People's Party, wrote on Twitter.
