331: Hakan Sükür, Türkiye, Panini England European Football Championship ’96

Today Richard Allinson looks at a national hero who currently isn’t allowed in the particular nation in which he was once so heroic. Whereas Marcus Rashford ended up with an MBE after taking the government to task and Theo Zagorakis found himself with a nice role as head of Greek football after resigning his position as an MEP today’s subject found himself in a much stickier situation. Maybe he should have just written his complaints on a big bed sheet. Over to Rich.

The latter stages of major tournaments throughout the 1990s and 2000s always seemed to throw up a number of countries and their talismanic leaders that disappeared from the upper echelons of the world scene almost as quickly as they arrived: Romania with Hagi and Dumitrescu; Bulgaria with Stoichkov and Letchkov; Norway with Øyvind Leonhardsen and erm… Steffen Iversen; Turkey with Rüstü Reçber and Colin Kazim-Richards Hakan Sükür. I’m sure each of these players have gone on to have happy and successful lives but I can’t imagine many of them have had quite the post football career as Mr Sükür. 

Sükür, or the Bull of Bosphorus as he is otherwise known, played for seven clubs throughout his career, with three spells at Galatasaray where he scored a whopping 217 goals in 392 games. He spent some time with Italian giants Inter Milan where he only managed six goals in 35 games, although his chances were limited by Christian Vieri and a pre-fat Fat Ronaldo. Prior to his final spell with Galatasaray, he also played nine games for Blackburn Rovers scoring two goals in 2002. The same year he was awarded the Turkish State Medal of Distinguished Service, although whether this was down to the double he scored against Fulham at Loftus Road is up for debate. At international level, Sükür was shit hot, scoring 51 goals in 112 games and finishing third in the 2002 World Cup. In 2003 the Turkish FA voted him UEFA’s Golden Player, basically Turkey’s most outstanding player of the last 50 years. Quite the accolade when he had Muzzy Izzet to compete with. This is all wonderful, but what happened to him after his retirement in 2008 really is rather unusual. 

In 2011 he was elected as an MP in Turkey for the Justice and Development Party, founded by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In 2013, he resigned from his position in protest over something complicated to do with Turkish politics and decided to carry on working as an independent MP. So far, this all seems relatively normal. However, in 2016, Sükür allegedly criticised Turkish president Erdoğan on Twitter and this is where things go a bit awry for the goal scoring hero. After the social media incident, Sükür was arrested and charged with being a member of the Gülen movement, who (according to Wikipedia) are designated as a terrorist organisation in Turkey. 

The whole affair saw Sükür flee Turkey to take up self-imposed exile in San Francisco with his aim being to set up a restaurant. However, he quite quickly knocked this on the head because “strange people kept coming into the bar”. I don’t blame him, I’ve watched the last episode of The Sopranos and hanging out in restaurants when you have enemies doesn’t end well. After giving up hopes of becoming the Turkish Gino D’Acampo, Sükür now spends his retirement working as an Uber driver and bookseller. This may be seen as a quite the comedown for someone so legendary on the football pitch, but should he ever return to Turkey he is likely to face charges of insulting the president and rebelling against the government. Such crimes are almost certain to mean life imprisonment and could even potentially result in the death penalty. With this in mind, driving pissed up students around California mustn’t seem so bad. 

So Hakan Sükür then, an exceptional footballing talent and if I ever go to San Francisco I’ll be sure to a) wear flowers in my hair and b) keep getting Uber’s until my driver is called Hakan. 

P.S. Sorry for the terrible Scott McKenzie joke.