Fans protest as Turkish match-fixing trial opens

Nearly 100 Turkish football players and managers, including the boss of champions Fenerbahce, went on trial Tuesday in a match-fixing case that has sent shockwaves through Turkish football. Hundreds of Fenerbahce fans wrapped in the club colours of yellow and blue surrounded the courthouse in a suburb of Istanbul, chanting support for club chairman Aziz Yildirim, who is among 13 Fenerbahce players and officials on trial. Security has been stepped up for the trial with large numbers of police keeping watch over irate fans. "Our name has been covered in mud but we are going to wipe it clean," 29-year-old Fenerbahce supporter Sedat Dogan told AFP. Yildirim has been in police custody since the ground-breaking investigation began eight months ago, and is one of 23 people detained who are still behind bars. Prosecutors have demanded he be jailed for a total of 147 years for corruption. One of the games investigated was Fenerbahce's 4-3 victory over Sivasspor, which secured it the championship title. The investigation has wreaked havoc on Turkish football. The Turkish Football Federation banned Fenerbahce from taking part in this year's Champions League and another leading club, Besiktas, were forced to hand back the Turkish Cup which they won last year. The chairman of the TFF, Mehmet Ali Aydinlar, and his two deputies resigned last month after the federation failed to agree on further sanctions for the clubs involved. Trabzonspor, who are still in this season's Europa League competition, are also being prosecuted, along with four officials from the TFF. But Fenerbahce, Turkish champions in 2011 and Champions League quarter-finalists in 2008, have attracted the lion's share of the charges, with a total of 13 people associated with the club being prosecuted. "They want to destroy Fenerbahce, but they won't be able to," shouted 28-year-old fan Onur Yasalar outside the court, accusing the great rivals Galatasaray of being behind a plot to destroy his club. The investigation, which kicked off nearly nine months ago, led to a wave of arrests in the summer after police became convinced that at least 19 first and second division matches were fixed during the 2010-1011 season. Some 31 people were initially arrested. A dozen former or current club managers are among the 23 people still behind bars. Apart from 59-year-old boss Yildirim, Fenerbahce also have Brazilian-born player Gogcek Vederson in the dock as well as trainers, therapists and even the team's Turkish-Portuguese interpreter. In December, Turkish lawmakers adopted a law designed to water down drastic sentencing guidelines introduced earlier in the year to punish corruption in football. The new law was meant to cut the maximum sentence for anyone found guilty of match-fixing from 12 to three years, but Turkish President Abdullah Gul vetoed the bill.