New Delhi: Turkey on Saturday bowed out of the FIFA World Cup after conceding a 1-0 defeat to 10-man Paraguay. The two back-to-back defeats in the group stage stand in contrast to Turkey’s last World Cup appearance, when the team finished third in the tournament. Back then, football legend Hakan Şükür and Emre Belözoğlu lit up the South Korean city of Daegu with their dazzling performances on the pitch.
Incidentally, Turkey last appeared in the world’s biggest football tournament in 2002. Sukur, the then captain of the team, scored the fastest goal in World Cup history—just 10.8 seconds after kick-off.
Şükür would have his legacy ostensibly celebrated to date, as the Crescent Stars finally returned to football’s largest stage this summer in North America. However, the top goalscorer for the national team and one of its most decorated players finds himself erased from Turkish football lore.
The goals, the adoration, the following, and the history of Şükür have all but vanished from the Turkish football mythos. Şükür’s damnatio memoriae began a decade ago, when the Turkish government accused the religious leader Fethullah Gülen of orchestrating an attempted coup d’état against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The following months saw the Turkish government aim at those who followed Gülen, and Şükür, who had risen to become a parliamentarian representing Erdogan’s party, found himself in the crossfire.
As the Gulenists, were rounded up across the country, Şükür left Turkey for the US, where he remains along with his family, mere minutes from the San Francisco Bay Area Stadium, which witnessed the elimination of the Turkish national team Saturday.
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From national hero to erased from memory
If the third-place finish at the 2002 FIFA World Cup is the pinnacle of the Turkish national team’s history, the final of the 1999-2000 UEFA Cup would be that of Turkish club Galatasaray’s history. After extra time, Galatasaray and Arsenal remained nil-nil, leading to penalties.
The club’s museum runs a movie dedicated to the final, showcasing the penalty-takers for the Turkish club – Ergun Penbe, Umit Davala and Gheorghe Popescu. For those watching the video, one might think Galatasaray won the shootout 3-1 vs Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal, but the scoreline was actually 4-1. For Şükür, the club’s record goal scorer, had successfully scored his penalty, lifting the ball to the right top corner above David Seaman’s lunging form.
Even a decade ago, the complete removal of Şükür from Turkish footballing lore would have been unthinkable. The former national team captain had seen his star rise in the same vein as Erdogan.
The Turkish President, when he was the Mayor of Istanbul, presided over Şükür’s first wedding, which was publicly broadcast around the country. That wedding also had Gülen stand in as a witness, alongside Erdoğan and Şükür.
As the stature of all three individuals grew in Turkey, Erdogan rose to become the Prime Minister of the country in 2003, and later the President in 2014. Gulen’s movement formed an uneasy partnership with Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), as their influence and power grew across the country over the next decade.
Şükür, close to both, saw his star rise along with Erdogan’s. Şükür met Queen Elizabeth II during her visit to Turkey in 2008, and even watched the Turkish star, along with then British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, have a small kick-about.
Three years later, Şükür was elected to the Turkish parliament representing the AKP. However, within a couple of years, the uneasy partnership between Erdogan and the Gulenists broke. Gulen, the founder of the Hizmet movement, focused on creating educational institutions propagating its teachings.
Erdogan moved to close down a few of the schools, which led to Şükür protesting the move and resigning from the AKP. The Turkish government moved to proscribe the Gülen movement as a terrorist organisation and issued an arrest warrant against the religious leader.
Şükür moved to California looking to set up a business in 2015, and in early 2016, he was indicted for insulting Erdogan with a social media post. Tried in absentia, Şükür rejected the charges. The failed coup d’etat in 2016 was blamed on the Gulenists, leading to a purge of the movement within the country.
Şükür was charged with being a member of a terrorist organisation. He denied being a part of the attempt; nevertheless, his property was seized, his father arrested, and his freedom depended on distancing himself from Gülen.
The government moved to erase Şükür from Turkish footballing lore swiftly. During the last World Cup in 2022, a Turkish commentator was removed from the broadcast mid-way through the game for mentioning that Şükür held the record for the fastest goal in the World Cup.
Given Turkey’s dismal exit from the 2026 World Cup, despite having some of the better technical midfielders in the tournament, maybe, just maybe, there would be those who wished for Şükür leading the team from the front.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)