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Turkish Football Federation

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Turkish Football Federation
UEFA
File:Turkey FA.gif
Founded1923
FIFA affiliation1923
UEFA affiliation1962
PresidentHaluk Ulusoy
Websitehttp://www.tff.org

The Turkish Football Federation (TFF), also called Turkish Football Association, (Turkish: Türkiye Futbol Federasyonu) is the governing body of football in Turkey. It was formed on April 23, 1923. It organizes the Turkish national teams and the Turkish football league. The current president of the TFF is Haluk Ulusoy. By 2004, there are 4,956 football clubs organized in Turkey, and a registered 4,775 professional and 136,823 amateur players with 233 women. 796 male and 20 female football referees are licensed by the TFF.

The Federation joined FIFA in 1923, and UEFA in 1962.

First steps

Football, hugely popular in Turkey, was brought introduced there in the second half of the 19th century when English tobacco and cotton traders visited the main harbour towns of the Ottoman Empire. In the beginning they played football with each other, and later taught the game to their Turkish neighbours.

The first football match on Turkish grounds was played in Salonika in 1875. After that, football was played in Istanbul and Izmir. But during this time, football was only played between English and Greek people. This was also the case in the first Turkish league, named the Istanbul Football League.

But some young Turkish men, who loved this game at once, began to play football in open fields without observing any rules. These young players formed the first Turkish team, playing their first match on 26 October, 1901, against a Greek team. Then the club Galatasaray, founded in 1905, became the first Turkish club to entering the Istanbul League. When the clubs Fenerbahce and Besiktas also entered this league, the real period of Turkish football began.

In the years after the First World War, with some military occupation of Turkey, Turkish teams began to play some matches against the occupation forces. After this, playing football became more important, because winning the matches against the teams of the occupation forces were treated like a national matter. A very strong love for football widened to the whole nation. After this period football in Turkey started to develop very fast and treating football like a "national matter" continued until now.

Competitions

Professional football in Turkey started in 1951. Recently there are three professional leagues, which are further broken down into regional groups and regional amateur leagues including a women's league.

Professional league

  • Premier Super League: 18 clubs play against each other in two half seasons. At the end of the league season, the bottom three teams relegate to the Secondary League Category A. The champion and the runner-up represent Turkey at the UEFA Champions League next year. The Turkish Cup champion and the next best club from the league play for Turkey at the UEFA Cup.
  • Second League is divided in two categories as A and B.
    • Second League Category A: 18 clubs play in two half seasons. At the end of the season, the leading three clubs of the Category A run up to the Premier Super League and the last three clubs relegate down to the Category B.
    • Second League Category B : There are 5 groups each consists of 10 clubs.
  • Third League consists of four groups as 1, 2, 3 and 4 of each 16 clubs, in total 64 clubs. The winners of each group, in total four clubs run up to the Second League Category B at the end of the season. Additionally, the first two clubs of the play-off matches between the second ranked four clubs run up to the Second League Category B. The last two clubs of each group, in total eight clubs relegate to the Amateur League at the end of the season.

Turkish Cup

The Turkish Cup changed its name to "Federation Cup" in 1980-1981, then back to "Turkish Cup" in 1992-1993. It is now known as the "Fortis Turkish Cup".

Amateur league

  • Seniors’ First Amateur League: 2145 clubs
  • Seniors’ Second Amateur League: 1743 clubs
  • Seniors’ Third Amateur League: 1 club
  • Women’s League: 9 clubs
  • Juniors’ First Amateur League: 27 clubs
  • Juniors’ Second Amateur League: 100 clubs
  • Juniors’ Super League is divided in 8 regional leagues.
    • Adana: 16 clubs
    • Ankara: 10 clubs
    • Antalya: 10 clubs
    • Bursa: 16 clubs
    • İstanbul: 18 clubs
    • İzmir: 12 clubs
    • Diyarbakır: 7 clubs
    • Trabzon: 13 clubs
    • Samsun: 10 clubs

At the end of the season, the winner eight amateur clubs run up to the professional Third League. If any club entitled to run up cannot meet the requirements for professionalism, the next ranked club runs up.

Awards

The champions of the Premier Super League, the Turkish Cup, the runner-up clubs of the professional leagues 2A, 2B, 3 and of the amateur league are awarded a trophy by the TFF each season.


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