We remind you that on Thursday the Turkish club will visit Kaunas and compete against “Kauno Žalgiris” in the second leg of the Europa League qualifying match. The Turks won the first match 3-0 last week.
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On Sunday, “Beşiktaş” lost 0-1 away to “Alanyaspor”. The only goal of the match was scored by Nuno Lima in the 73rd minute.
The Istanbul club controlled most of the match, making 15 shots compared to only five by the opponents, but after the final whistle, the discussion was mostly about refereeing rather than the result.
“Beşiktaş” issued a very harsh statement criticizing the main referee Adnan Deniz Kayatepe and VAR referee Bülent Birincioglu. The club declared that they no longer want to see this, in their words, “malicious” referee duo in their matches.
“The referees’ behavior in our match against ‘Alanyaspor’ has gone down in history as a disgraceful document for Turkish refereeing,” said “Beşiktaş”.
The biggest outrage of the Istanbul club was caused by several incidents. In one of them, according to “Beşiktaş”, an opposing player struck Leandro Trossard, who arrived this summer from London “Arsenal”, in the face, but neither the main referee nor VAR reacted to the situation.
“The opposing player hit Trossard directly in the face in front of everyone. Referee Adnan Deniz Kayatepe did not notice this incident, and Bülent Birincioglu in the VAR room remained silent,” the statement said.
“Beşiktaş” was also dissatisfied with the disallowed goal by South Korean forward Oh Hyeon-gyu.
“Oh broke free from the opponent and scored a goal in the match. Since the opposing player dramatically fell to the ground, Adnan Deniz Kayatepe annulled our goal,” the Istanbul club complained.
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Another incident was related to Dušan Vlahović.
“Vlahović, trying to break into the penalty area, was grabbed by the collar and knocked down. Referee Kayatepe again turned a blind eye to what happened,” wrote “Beşiktaş”.
Along with the statement, the club posted a video on the social network “X” showing four incidents they considered wrongly judged. It was accompanied by the caption: “Different situations, different seasons, different names, but the decisions are always the same!”
“Beşiktaş” also recalled previous decisions by Kayatepe.
“Adnan Deniz Kayatepe, son of the Chairman of the Central Referees Committee, whose scandalous decisions in last season’s Turkish Cup semi-final are still vividly remembered, added another shameful performance to his record – as if saying: ‘Let’s continue from where we left off’,” the statement said.
The Istanbul club demanded that both referees not be assigned to their matches in the future.
“We never want to see such malicious referees as Adnan Deniz Kayatepe and Bülent Birincioglu in our matches again.
We do not seek advantages or privileges. We only demand fair and equal refereeing. We will resolutely continue our legitimate fight until this unfair system changes,” said “Beşiktaş”.
Turkish football refereeing has recently been undergoing a period of change. This month, former English Premier League referee Anthony Taylor was appointed director of elite referees at the Turkish Football Federation.
His appointment came ten months after a major investigation revealed that 371 out of 571 referees working in Turkey had betting accounts.
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