Football is a game of political and profit-based plunder.

Football's popularity allows it to appeal to a broader public. Therefore, football without politics and a political structure without football are inconceivable. In fact, the two are intertwined. Football requires political support for its demands for authority, exception, resources, privilege, and concessions. Football is used to reproduce power and capitalist relations of production.

As capitalist production relations began to develop, every sphere of human existence became commodified, and football became a phenomenon used for this purpose in both Turkey and other countries. Football's popularity, appealing to billions of people, became one of the tools for overcoming the crisis in the capitalist world economy that contracted after the 1980s. The process of industrialization served this purpose.

The process of professionalization within football's industrialization transformed it from a mere game into a field operating at the economic level. From this point on, political interventions became decisive in these production relations. Appointments from club presidents to TFF presidents in our country are no coincidence. And the opening of the Big Four's resources to commercialization also resulted from political demands and strategies.

Despite the clubs' financial shortcomings, it wouldn't be fair to evaluate major transfers solely through football. With professionalization, ownership and presidents first changed hands. Player transfer opportunities and salaries also increased, fully integrating football into the industry, thus creating a significant economic " rent ."

Osimhend €150 million, Ederson €59 million, Uğurcan €44 million, Kerem €53 million, Duran €20 million, Singo €35 million, Abraham €41.5 million, and Orkun €55 million. The total cost is €478 million. So, is it reasonable to explain the 23 billion TL spent by debt-ridden clubs with the money earned from football? This economic "rent" generated, along with these transfers made in our country, has been transferred abroad as wealth, creating a happy few. As clubs went bankrupt, individuals began to prosper.

To ensure the perpetuation of this economic profiteering, politics is using every tool at its disposal, including the Turkish Football Federation (TFF). For example, the ability of Süper Lig clubs to spend a total of 27.5 billion TL this season under the Team Expenditure Limits (THL) means using funds that don't exist. Furthermore, the four clubs have implemented 16 paid-for capital increases since their IPOs (2002-2025), totaling 18.9 billion TL, and the use of public bank resources for football are all examples of political interference.

As of May 31, 2025, the four clubs' end-of-season losses approached 4.5 billion Turkish Lira. More alarmingly, the cumulative losses of these clubs from previous years, which have eroded their equity, have risen to 35.3 billion Turkish Lira. This situation, which exceeds the revenues of the four clubs, has reached a level that threatens the clubs' financial health and stability. (Tuğrul Akşar) Currently, the total debt of the Big Four is 46.3 billion Turkish Lira.

Within this structure we've described, football has become a space that perpetuates inequality alongside politics. The team values ​​of the Big Four are twice those of the other 14 teams. When we consider the privilege afforded to the Big Four, the ideological significance of football and its standing are paramount. Naturally, the collaborations between all institutions and political institutions must also be considered in conjunction with the relationship between politics and football. Ultimately, football has become a space where social inequality and its accompanying ideologies are reproduced.

In fact, the seeds of today's sport were sown by Mussolini in 1922, and it reached its zenith with the stadium built in the capital between 1944 and 1947 for Real Madrid, which sided with Franco during the civil war and was renamed the Santiago Bernabeu. Franco, who ordered, "Make me sleeping bags for 100,000 people...", pursued a fascist dream of creating a pure Spanish race centered in Madrid.

Prior to this, Mussolini, who made a significant footballing move from 1922 to 1930, took ownership of Lazio, a modest club from the capital city of Rome, founded in 1900, and began providing financial and logistical support to the club in 1922. With its emblem and its people, Lazio had undertaken a sporting, political, and military mission. Its appearance and identity made Lazio seem perfectly suited to garnering Mussolini's support. Mussolini's primary goal in football was not to create a movement that could influence the public, but rather to cultivate a youth who would obey him through the language of football and to incorporate football as a primary sport alongside their military training. His interventions in the 1934 and 1938 World Cups served this purpose.

In Portugal, Salazar's 3F theory was at a completely different level with Benfica and Eusebio; creating a football dream, like Franco's, was the most logical move to confuse people and prevent them from seeing the existing problems. In this way, Salazar didn't hesitate to use football as political fodder.

Every dictator has a team, a stadium, and endless money for football. Johan Cruyff, who approaches football with the air of a philosopher who understands how to perpetuate change, explained what should be in his book. When he says, "Performance in the football vision consists of the sum of technique, tactics, training, and finance," he clearly demonstrates that football is more than just a game; it requires a holistic management strategy. Let's leave it at that!