President of Turkish Fenerbahce Ali Koç reacted to the situation with the trick of the club's fans, who, during the home match with Dynamo Kyiv (1:2) in the 2nd qualifying round of the Champions League, began to sing a song about Putin.
Ali Koch“We will not apologize to Ukraine. I will explain the reason for this a little later. But the Ukrainian ambassador to Turkey, after his endless speeches, must apologize to us.
I consider it unnecessary and inappropriate to utter such "chants", even if it is caused by a moment of anger (Fenerbahce fans sang the mentioned song after Dynamo scored the second goal at the end of the match, leading the Ukrainian team to the next round — ed. note). But I condemn those who, in this situation, are trying to blame everything on the great Fenerbahce club with its 115-year glorious history.
And we are now talking about a 20-second event that has nothing to do with the identification of our club. And the match lasted 120 minutes, and many other events happened during this time. For example, everyone saw how the Dynamo goalkeeper, who previously played in Turkey (We are talking about Denis Boyko, who from 2015 to 2016 defended the colors of the irreconcilable rival of Fenerbahce - Besiktas, - ed.), even before the start of the game provoked the stands. And after the Dynamo goal, he jumped off the bench and again began to demonstrate all these gestures to our fans.
The position of Turkey and Fenerbahce in the situation with the war in Ukraine? We are on no one's side. We have both Ukrainian and Russian players. We are focused on uniting, not dividing. Football should not be in the first place in the series of factors that divide countries, ”Turkish media quoted Koç as saying.
