genclerbirligi play galatasaray tonight in the first leg of the turkish cup semi-finals. there will be plenty of galatasaray fans but possibly just a handful of gencler fans. why? because genclerbirligi chairman ilhan cavcav has decided to put a price tag of 45 tl for tickets to maraton.
genclerbirligi fan sites are full of people complaining that they can't afford to go and others deciding to boycott the match in protest. now for many of the foreigners who read this blog 45 tl may not sound like a lot of money but for turkey this is a damn lot, especially when you consider that a season ticket for gencler cost us 105 tl.
at a similar stage of the cup competition last year we played fenerbahce. there was outrage when cavcav made us pay 30 tl for those tickets. still, we showed up and actually we started up a small fund to get some of our student fans in. this year he has decided to hike the price by 50 percent.
so it seems as if there will be just a few fans watching tonight. and what is the bet that afterwards cavcav will complain to the media that the people of ankara don't support their own teams.
i still haven't decided whether to go or not. i'll make that decision over a beer at the chopin.
edit: seems as if a group of around 20 gencler fans will also be at the chopin bar this evening
