Football scandal in Türkiye!

Hundreds of referees, including activists at the national level, bet on football matches in Turkey, the head of the football federation said Monday, threatening to impose immediate sanctions.
Ibrahim Haji Osmanoglu revealed, during a press statement, that an internal investigation that included 571 referees showed that “371 of them had betting accounts, and 152 were actively betting.”
He added, “We are determined to cleanse football of every trace of corruption. We will not exclude anyone,” noting that “the necessary sanctions” will be taken “as of today” on Monday.
The Federation President explained that ten of the referees involved made more than 10,000 bets, one of them alone made 18,227 bets, while 42 referees bet on more than a thousand matches each.
Haci Osmanoglu pointed out that 22 out of 371 referees (7 arena referees and 15 assistant referees) are active at the national level (higher level), without revealing their identities or whether some of them were suspected of betting on matches they officiated.
In light of the repeated accusations of bias directed at Turkish referees, in the spring of 2024, the Federation entrusted foreign referees to manage the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology in a number of Super League matches.
In February, a foreign referee officiated the heated Istanbul derby between Galatasaray and its traditional rival, Fenerbahce, who has accused the referees for years of favoring his opponent.