Basaksehir settles in at the top of Turkish football thanks to Erdogan's drive

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey and a great football fan, supported the creation of the Istanbul Basaksehir team to have a team close to its sphere of influence within the most important city of the Eurasian country. The club created twelve years ago is supported by powers close to the 'sultan' and is linked to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP); in fact, they coincide in the colours of the ensigns. 

Now, Basaksehir has made history after recently winning the Turkish League after little more than a decade in domestic professional football. The fact that it is an artificial team is demonstrated by the lack of social mass behind the team, which contrasts with the great economic potential it has and the important sporting infrastructure it enjoys. The small number of fans it has has nothing to do with the legions of supporters that the other big Istanbul clubs like Fenerbahce, Galatasaray and Besiktas have. 

In professional football, you cannot buy feelings, but you can buy teams and make squads that aspire to titles, and thanks to the financial boost given by power, Basaksehir has become champions. All it takes is money, and Erdogan's team has it, and he's been able to sign some great stars who have made it possible for him to be a champion and to play in the next Champions League. 

Basaksehir is viewed with suspicion by rival fans because of the lack of tradition the team is suffering from, supported by its most famous fan, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Basaksehir's colours are orange, blue and white, the same as the AKP's, and that is no coincidence.

An artificial club, made into Turkey's best by millions of euros and the efforts of Erdogan, whose shirt with the number 12 on it is retired by the club and no one can wear it. Erdogan only wore it once to play and no one else will. It was at the opening of the modern Basaksehir Fatih Terim Stadium in 2014 and Erdogan scored three goals that day. Another of the club's peculiarities is that the stadium is named after former national team coach Fatih Terim, who currently coaches Galatasaray, one of Turkey's historic teams and Basaksehir's opponents in the city of Istanbul. Terim has never had any connection with Basaksehir, but he has had a great and successful career in Turkish football. 

This megalomaniacal project began in the 1990s. It was at this time that the Basaksehir district was built, a personal undertaking of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, then mayor of Istanbul. His idea was to create an ideal neighbourhood for the inhabitants of more conservative ideology, the one that characterises the Ottoman president. Before the neighbourhood was founded in 1990, the modest ISKI SK, a small club linked to the Istanbul water company, was renamed Istanbul Büyüksehir Belediyespor (Istanbul BB) in 1991.

The club lived under this name until Erdogan crossed its path in 2014 and its name was linked to the neighbourhood where it is located.

Its president was already Goksel Gumusdag, politically linked to the AKP and familiar to Erdogan, being married to a niece of the president's wife. The club had just returned to the First Division, a category in which it had already played between 2007 and 2013, and that was the moment chosen to force its privatization, allow it to be acquired by companies close to the government and change its name. That year, 2014, Istanbul Basaksehir was born.

The new 17,000-seater stadium, which usually has more empty seats than occupied, was built and tens of millions of euros were invested in transfers. Many of the fans who come to watch Basaksehir's matches are members of the '1453' fan group, named after the date of the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks.

The Basaksehir enjoys the support of major sponsors such as Turkish Airlines (the Turkish flag carrier), Burger King and DenizBank, as well as the support of the great contribution of the Medipol group.

Among the most prominent players who have worn the orange shirt are Togolese Emmanuel Adebayor, Gael Clichy, Robinho and Turkish star Arda Turam. France's Clichy and Brazil's Robinho are still in the squad, along with the likes of Turkey's Mehmet Topal, Bosnian Edin Visca, Slovakia's Martin Skrtel, the Netherlands' Eljero Elia and Senegal's Demba Ba. 

In the last 35 years, only Bursaspor, in the 2009-2010 season, had been able to snatch a Turkish league from Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe or Besiktas. This is a measure of the power that Basaksehir has achieved in Turkish football, the same power that Recep Tayyip Erdogan has in the nation.