Özhan Canaydın

Özhan Canaydın is the current chairman of the Turkish sports club Galatasaray SK, best known for its football team.

Born in 1943 in Bursa, Canaydın began to play basketball in 1958. He retired from basketball in 1964.

In 1957, he became the youngest member of the Galatasaray organization with the registration number 155.

Playing with the youth national team that won the European Youth Championship in 1962, Canaydın was also among the eight players of the Galatasaray basketball team that won the Turkish Championship. He was a member of Galatasaray star, junior and senior basketball teams and participated in the teams that became Turkish champions.

Canaydın graduated from Galatasaray Lycee in 1963 and married Asuman Canaydın in 1965. Married for 37 years, he has two children and four grandchildren. His son, Murat Canaydın also graduated from Galatasaray Lycee and runs the family business now.

Canaydın started his business career in 1963 in the textile sector, in which his father had a company. Later on he built up his own business. He invested money in the fields of weaving, knitting, dye and ready-to-wear clothing by establishing a partnership with Italian businessmen. Canaydin has a factory in Bursa, which has a 20,000 square meters closed area and 1,200 workers. The factory operates on the production for export of brands such as Kappa, Nike, Next, Lacoste, Fila, Adidas and Mavi Jeans.

Özhan Canaydın assigned his business to professional managers after being elected as President of Galatasaray in 2002. Canaydin has also served Galatasaray under the presidencies of Ali Tanrıyar, Alp Yalman and Faruk Süren.

Canaydin was re-elected chairman of Galatasaray on March 25, 2006.