Why are Turkish clubs like Galatasaray or Fenerbahçe so extremely popular in Azerbaijan?

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Posted by MuteKasper

12 Comments

  1. Gala is very popular among locals, fener is popular mostly among students who went to study in Turkey. Besiktas got popular after Lucescu was sacked by Galatasaray and went to Besiktas to win the League title.

    Every club has its own reason to be popular, but Gala is the most famous. Fener and Bjk are not comparable.

  2. WhydYouKillMeDogJack on

    Probably the same reason that Manu, Liverpool etc are popular in ireland.

    People can watch them on TV and Az doesnt have many high-performing teams, so people follow a near-neighbour.

  3. Particular-Track-227 on

    Because of exposure. Azerbaijani football is not spectacular, so people look outside to find teams to support. Now they have exposure to turkish football, thus they support turkish teams. There were times when we were able to watch argentinian national league on turkish tv channel NTV, and plenty of my friends were speaking of argentinian teams, supporting them. Now they see turkish football all day and naturally support a team among turkish clubs.
    During my early school years people were supporting either Dinamo Kiev or Spartak Moscow. Most probably because back then people were getting info from either Futbol+ or SovetskiySport, both newspapers. They had full pages dedicated to Dinamo and Spartak. We parrot what we see around us.

  4. They are clubs of a neighboring country that is generally sympathetic to Azerbaijanis. And they have sporting successes and titles in European competition, Galatasaray more so in football and Fenerbahce more so in basketball. 

    In my opinion it helps that they’re majority fan-owned and operated civic organizations (derneks) rather than just some privatized companies, something that harmed sporting culture in many post-Soviet countries in my opinion. Barcelona and Real Madrid are other famous examples of multisport, fan-owned and operated clubs. I think this brings deeper interest too.