Bursaspor has had a long and messy history with UEFA’s financial controls. In 2012, it was found by UEFA to be in breach of rules for having unpaid invoices to clubs, and fined €200,000. The club, based in Bursa, northwest Turkey, was then excluded from the Europa League for one year, a sentence only activated if the club fell foul of rules any time over the subsequent three years.

Two years later, in June 2014, the CFCB learned that Bursaspor owed its players around €3.3 million. Although the club reduced this debt to a little under €300,000 over the next few months, UEFA declared this was a violation, and not only implemented the previous exclusion, but also imposed a new one.

Bursaspor appealed both decisions at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, the body tasked with resolving disputes in sport. Some of club’s arguments were ambitious – it claimed, for example, that a rogue employee was to blame for unpaid wages – and ultimately the court sided with UEFA, handing the club a €250,000 and upholding the ban.

All the while, the club was also battling with CFCB over its €19 million deficit. This time CFCB agreed to a settlement and a fine. But Bursaspor’s case highlights how far the association was willing to go to enforce bans against smaller teams while making special efforts to appease larger clubs guilty of financial doping. Clubs with super rich owners are unlikely to suffer from unpaid bills.

Other Turkish teams were similarly pursued. The CFCB investigated Turkish clubs Trabzonspor and Karabükspor. Karabükspor had already settled an earlier case with the investigative chamber after it was found to have annual losses of around €6 million per year between 2012 and 2015. Its settlement obliged the club to become break-even compliant by 2016. When the time came, the club failed with a new, three-year breach of €19 million. The adjudicatory chamber activated the ban.

Trabzonspor’s breach of €22 million was far less than the big clubs let off by UEFA. The club’s owner declined to cover any of the deficit and so UEFA issued a fine and a suspended ban under a settlement agreement. Last year UEFA enforced a transfer ban after the club failed to meet the terms of the settlement.

Sinan Zengin, general manager of Trabzonspor, told The Black Sea that he felt that UEFA was now “following the FFP procedures better,” and there are recent “examples where the inflated sponsorship agreements were not accepted and cancelled.”

But he harshly criticised UEFA for not taking into consideration region problems, such as unstable currencies, and economic downturns, in places like Turkey, which is currently in the grip of a financial crisis. “Our country’s economic situation is not stable so our clubs face serious currency deficit and interest expenditures,” he said. “This creates an unfair situation for our clubs compared to the clubs who operate in stable economies… They have done this partially the last season but it is in no way sufficient.”

The CFCB did conduct settlement agreements with two Turkish clubs: Galatasaray and Beşiktaş.

Galatasaray's submissions to UEFA in 2013 revealed not only a huge debt within the company, but an aggregated deficit of more than €50 million. Galatasaray shareholders injected cash and the club reduce the breach to only €9.4 million.

The CFCB opted to sign a agreement with the club. But in 2016, when it learned Galatasaray’s losses had grown to €164 million, the financial body imposed a ban on transfers. This decision is now under review by UEFA.

But the auditor’s review of Galatasaray’s books at the time reveal the club acted largely honestly in its submission. When UEFA also opened an investigation in 2014 into the leading Istanbul football club, Beşiktaş, this was a different matter.

The club accounts revealed that its present and future finances were in bad shape. The club owed €105.5 million more than it had in assets. It also had a new break-even deficit of €141 million.

Besiktas had also provided UEFA with a forecast of its earnings and expenses for the coming year. When PriceWaterhouseCoopers audited these accounts, its investigators found that the club had provided false information that ultimately improved its finances by around €12 million. It overstated its sponsorship by at least €2.8 million and understated its losses by around €9 million.

Eventually, Beşiktaş was offered a settlement terms that included a €5.5 million fine and spending limitations.

When asked by The Black Sea about its financial affairs, and conduct during the CFCB investigation, a Beşiktaş’s press officer said by email: "These are not the questions I can answer. Who gave you my details?"

Although details are not included in the new data, UEFA also imposed transfer restrictions on Istanbul club Fenerbahce, in May 2016, for excessive deficits. Earlier this year, Fenerbahce’s president Alı Koç, from one of Turkey’s richest families, announced he would inject around €50 million of his own cash to save the club.

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Opening picture: PSG supporters, October 24, 2018. (Photo credit: FRANCK FIFE/AFP/Getty Images) via Guliver