The 'caste' system in football

Life begins with contradictions, continues with the clash of contradictions, and people are tested with endless struggles that force them to differentiate.

The hierarchical struggle for survival, structured as an individual's opposition to strangers, relatives, and oneself, is called social stratification. At the core of this stratification lies inequality and differentiation.

In open social stratification, individuals are socially mobile based on their acquired identities. In closed social stratification, there is no social mobility, and acquired statuses persist hierarchically within the family.

This stratification gains institutional identity through the influence of social, cultural, religious, political, economic, and ethnic differentiation within societies. As a result, stratification undermines and hinders the development of cultural unity and freedoms built through social and consensus-based practices.

The social pyramid hierarchy, particularly within the authoritarian structure created by the factors mentioned above, allows certain layers to move upward in status, while the majority exerts intense efforts to maintain a lower status. There are clear boundaries and hierarchies between castes.

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When you look at the structure of football, we see that there is a lower segment of the population that does not benefit from these privileges, even though they have the same status as the upper segment.

The reason for this privilege is based on the political structure's desire to use football as a propaganda tool by using its sociopolitical and sociocultural impact for its own purposes.

Let me explain using the source from dear Tuğrul Akşar.

The Turkish Football Federation (TFF) has set club spending limits for the 2025-26 Süper Lig season. Under the Team Spending Limits (THL), Süper Lig clubs will be able to spend a total of 27.5 billion Turkish Lira this season.

The 16.7 billion TL Team Spending Limit, defined for the top four clubs, has reached 61 percent of the total THL. This figure was 69.5 percent last season.

The 10.7 billion TL Team Spending Limit assigned to the other fourteen clubs represents 39 percent of the total THL. Last season, this figure was around 30.5 percent.

The average THL defined for the top four clubs reached 5.07 times the THL defined for the other fourteen clubs, compared to 8.57 last season. The THL, which stood at 2.7 billion TL in 2019, saw a 905% increase, reaching 27.5 billion TL in the 2025-26 season. Accordingly, the THL average saw an annual increase of 129% over the seven-year period.

And capital increases…

When club management errors are compounded by macroeconomic challenges, capital increases through paid-up is an inevitable outcome. Since their initial public offerings (2002-2025), these four clubs have implemented 16 paid-up capital increases, totaling 18.9 billion Turkish Lira. Trabzonspor has achieved the largest capital increase through paid-up, with 7,475 million Turkish Lira. Beşiktaş, on the other hand, has recently implemented 400% paid-up capital increases, but while they expected 4.8 billion Turkish Lira in revenue, they only received 1.4 billion Turkish Lira. Consequently, they were unable to repay their debts to the banking consortium.

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Pool revenues…

The 2024-25 Süper Lig season, which concluded with Galatasaray's championship, saw a total of 3.7 billion Turkish Lira in pool revenue distributed to 19 clubs. Galatasaray earned 447,000,000 Turkish Lira in revenue, while Fenerbahçe finished second, earning 390,150,000 Turkish Lira in prize money. Beşiktaş, which finished fourth in the league, earned 328,300,000 Turkish Lira in pool revenue. The three major clubs received more than 31 percent of the revenue.

Now, when we look at the issue from a different perspective, although the Süper Lig's annual revenue is between €600 and €700 million, its expenses are around €1.2 billion. So, there's a deficit here... Collaboration with politics is inevitable to finance this deficit.

Politically, the clubs are also encouraged to focus on asset sales or real estate development to escape this debt trap. Fenerbahçe's sale of the land adjacent to Ülker Arena to TOKİ (Housing Development Administration of Turkey), Galatasaray's Riva and Florya projects, Beşiktaş's Dikilitaş project, and Trabzonspor's Akyazı project with Emlak Konut GYO A.Ş. are all political cooperation projects. This is because politics, economy, and politics are built upon this foundation.

When we add all this up, Galatasaray sits at the top of the "caste" pyramid system, a political consensus of semi-closed social stratification. Just below that are Fenerbahçe, and far below that are the others. BJK and TS will now be forced to compete for third or fourth place in this lower segment.

Presidents and managers who have lied about Beşiktaş for 25 years have brought the club to this point—separating it from Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe—and forcing it to bow to political demands. Commercial concerns have overshadowed sporting expectations.

This process seems difficult to change.