Hands Off Hacıosmanoğlu – Or You’ll Get Burned
The season is crawling towards its end and, as always, every single club is up in arms about refereeing mistakes. From top to bottom of the league table, managers and presidents complain about bias, incompetence and injustice. Everyone is angry with those who run the game.
Yet no matter how much they rage, almost nobody dares to utter one simple sentence: “TFF President İbrahim Hacıosmanoğlu must resign.” Two exceptions tried – and then quickly backtracked.
Instead, all the fury is carefully redirected toward the head of the Central Refereeing Board. He has been turned into the convenient villain of the year, the designated scapegoat of the season. In the past, when fires like this broke out, the flames would almost instantly leap toward the president of the federation and the conflict would escalate to a different level.
Think back over the last twenty-five years. How many federation presidents can you remember who were not, at some point during the season, openly pushed by clubs to “hand over the keys” and step down? The list is very short.
The answer lies where it almost always does in Turkish football: in politics.
The politics-football alliance
Recall how tight the bond between football and political power has become. Club executives who turned corridors of parliament into their second office to negotiate tax and social security amnesties. Presidents who spent nights outside ministers’ doors to accelerate stadium projects. Directors who chased lawmakers through commission meetings to get laws amended in favor of their clubs.
These people know exactly which doors their survival depends on. Today, they are staring at a federation president whose back is pressed firmly against the wall of state power. How are they supposed to attack someone who stands that close to the political center?
Browse the public record of the last two years and you will see the pattern: which senior officials, which ministers, which high-ranking bureaucrats have posed side by side with İbrahim Hacıosmanoğlu? How often has he appeared in carefully staged images that underline proximity to power? Those photo ops are not random, and they are certainly not harmless.
The TFF President knows precisely what kind of leverage this creates. Under such conditions, and especially with the so-called “Big Four” clubs, almost nobody dares to challenge his actions or even suggest limits to his authority.
Not one of them has the courage to say openly: “You appointed this MHK chairman. You are directly responsible for the chaos we are living through.” Instead, they prefer to hide behind the proverb: “I’m telling my daughter, hoping my daughter-in-law understands.” Publicly they scold the refereeing body; privately they bite their tongues about the man who runs it all.
Those who try to rebel can look at the warning example in front of them: the exemplary punishment handed down to Burak Yılmaz. That sentence hangs in the air like a threat to anyone who might be tempted to raise their voice.
A refereeing chief who will not be forgotten
And then there is the man at the center of officiating. If, after so many displays of incompetence, lack of vision and sheer inability, he still sits in his chair, he owes it entirely to the patience – or calculation – of the TFF President. He should be grateful for that protection.
But what he has done to refereeing will not disappear from Turkish football’s memory. Counting the infamous March 8 operation as well, his two and a half years in charge will be remembered as a period in which the country’s refereeing – both domestically and internationally – was driven into the ground.
Referees, observers and almost everyone who currently stand before him “at attention,” hands folded and voices silenced, will one day behave very differently. When the climate of fear begins to fade and the tide turns, those same people will rush to line up in front of their “new masters.” Holiday messages, congratulatory calls, polite visits – all will change address overnight. The loyalty of fear is always temporary.
The cult of image around the president
Here is another curious chapter in this story: the endless parade of visitors to the TFF headquarters. A composer, a lyricist, a treasurer, the head of a skating federation, the lead singer of a rock band, a comedian, a football pundit, a party official, a consul general, a restaurant owner from Kosovo, an oil-wrestling lord from Kırkpınar…
What kind of news value does a meeting between these figures and the president of the Turkish Football Federation really have? Yet every single one of these visits is carefully photographed, packaged and published as if it were a state affair of utmost importance.
Since taking office on 18 July 2024, there have been more than 290 such “courtesy calls,” each turned into a visual story. Excluding holidays, that gives you nearly one image-rich piece of content for almost every working day. A continuous photo festival.
As a journalist, one question insists on being asked: Are these strange displays personally orchestrated by İbrahim Hacıosmanoğlu, or are they the work of his small army of courtiers and flatterers trying to build a personality cult around him? In either case, it is clear that the priority is not transparency, reform or refereeing quality – it is the relentless construction of an image of untouchable authority.
Why no one really wants change
Another reason for the silence is more uncomfortable: many club leaders benefit from the existing order. Complaining about referees is a perfect shield. It is far easier to blame a penalty decision or an offside flag than to confront poor financial management, bad transfers, or flawed technical planning.
Calling for the resignation of the MHK chairman costs little. Targeting the federation president – who stands at the intersection of politics, money and football – carries a price. That price can be a blocked stadium project, a delayed payment, a cold shoulder from a ministry, a hostile referee appointment. No president wants to risk this.
Thus, the system produces a paradox: everyone screams about injustice, but almost no one genuinely wants the power structure that creates it to be dismantled. They just want the wheel to briefly turn in their favor.
The erosion of trust
In the meantime, the real victim is trust. Fans wake up each week a little less convinced that results are decided on the pitch. Coaches and players enter matches believing that invisible hands might tilt the balance. Referees step out knowing that one mistake can be amplified beyond measure, while well-connected figures in management remain untouchable.
Once this belief in fairness is broken, no disciplinary decision, no press conference, no glossy photo gallery can repair it. What is leaking away is not only faith in referees, but faith in the very institutions that are supposed to safeguard the game.
Fear as a method of governance
What ties all of this together is the deliberate use of fear as a management tool. Heavy punishments for outspoken critics, institutional protection for favored allies, an omnipresent aura of political backing: the message is clear.
In such an environment, self-censorship becomes the norm. Club presidents moderate their language. Technical directors choose their words with surgical care. Footballers avoid commenting at all. Even within the federation, dissent is driven underground.
This is effective in the short term, but destructive in the long run. A sport that cannot criticize its own structures cannot correct its mistakes. Problems are pushed below the surface until they explode in far more damaging ways.
What a real accountability would look like
Breaking this cycle would require something almost revolutionary in the current climate: genuine accountability at the top. A federation president who accepts responsibility for his appointments. Transparent evaluation of refereeing structures. Decision-making insulated from political showmanship.
It would mean leaders prepared to lose favor to defend principles. Club executives ready to criticize not just the easy targets, but those truly responsible for policy. A refereeing administration selected for competence, not loyalty.
Without such a shift, debates will keep circling around the same superficial points: one penalty here, one red card there, one controversial VAR line. The deeper issue – who holds real power and how they use it – will remain untouched.
When the wheel finally turns
History teaches that no climate of fear lasts forever. Political winds change, alliances shift, and new figures come to power. When that moment arrives, the way today’s leaders are remembered will be determined not by the number of photo opportunities they collected, but by whether they strengthened or weakened the foundations of the game.
The current refereeing chief will be remembered as the administrator who presided over one of the most damaging periods in Turkish officiating. And İbrahim Hacıosmanoğlu will be judged not by how many visitors he received, but by how he used the power that made him seemingly untouchable.
Today, a simple unwritten rule echoes through the corridors of Turkish football: “Don’t touch Hacıosmanoğlu – or you’ll get burned.” Sooner or later, that sentence will be replaced by another: “Why did no one dare to speak when it still mattered?”