Amedspor football club in Turkiye fined for pro-Kurdish ‘propaganda’

Turkish Football Federation fines second-division title favourites Amedspor and suspends president for social media video.

Turkiye’s main Kurdish football team has been fined for “ideological propaganda” in favour of Kurdish forces in northern Syria, the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) has said.

Amedspor FC, which is based in Diyarbakir, the main city in the Kurdish-majority southeast, was fined 802,500 Turkish lira (nearly $18,500) and its president slapped with a 15-day suspension from all football activity, the TFF said in a statement late on Thursday.

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At issue was a 20-second clip on its social media accounts showing a woman having her hair braided set to a soundtrack featuring the widely used Kurdish slogan “Jin, jiyan, azadi” – which means “Woman, life, freedom”.

Over the past week, hair braiding has become a symbolic show of solidarity with Syrian Kurds as Damascus has pressed a military offensive in northeastern areas formerly part of the Kurds’ de facto autonomous administration.

In recent weeks, social media has been awash with clips of women braiding their hair in response to a video showing a Syrian soldier holding up a plait he claimed to have cut from a female Kurdish fighter in Raqqa that was recently taken by the Syrian military.

Although the claim could not be independently verified, it caused an online backlash.

The TFF said the club was guilty of “damaging the reputation of football” by “making ideological propaganda”.

Contacted by AFP, Amedspor President Nahit Eren said he had appealed against the decision, but made no further comment.

Eren – former head of the Diyarbakir Bar Association – had on Tuesday posted on X about “efforts to embroil our club in various controversies”.

Currently top of the second division, Amedspor could be promoted this year to Turkiye’s top-flight Super Lig for the first time in their history.