Attacking a referee on the field at the end of a league game last season, a former top-flight football club executive has been sentenced by a Turkish court to more than three-and- a-half years in prison.
Following a 1-1 tie in a Super Lig game against Caykur Rizespor last year, the MKE Ankaragucu president Faruk Koca gave the referee Halil Umut Meler a 1-1 punch in the face.
After Rizespor scored a last-minute equaliser on December 11, 2023, Meler, who dropped to the ground, was also kicked in a melee by spectators invading the field. The episode set off worldwide indignation and led the Turkish Football Federation to postpone league events for several weeks.
The Anadolu Agency said the Ankara court found Koca guilty of “intentionally wounding a public official” and sentenced him three years and seven months in jail.
Though it deferred the penalties, the court also found Koca guilty of breaking regulations meant to prevent violence in sports and of threatening the referee.
The agency said that three more persons on trial for attacking the referee were sentenced to one to five years in prison.
Koca is expected to appeal as he quit as club president shortly after the incident. Last year he was briefly imprisoned before being freed on bail.
Claiming they had committed the act under “unjust provocation,” lawyers defending the defendants asked for their acquittal Anadolu reported.
Ankaragucu was obliged to play five home games without spectators and fined 2m Turkish Lira (£45,000).
The referee had a little fracture near an eye and was hospitalised.
