The head of the football club that represents Turkey’s Kurdish-populated southeastern province of Diyarbakır (Amed) on Sunday slammed far-right politician Ümit Özdağ for his polarising rhetoric.
The football club was established in 1990 as Diyarbakırspor, then rebranded as Amedspor in 2014 while the Turkish government was having peace talks with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Since the collapse of the peace process in 2015, Amedspor has been the target of continuous attacks from nationalist groups partially due to adopting the province’s Kurdish name, Amed.
The leader of the far right Victory Party, Ümit Özdağ, attacked Amedspor on Sunday while visiting local shop owners in the northwestern province of Bursa.
Amedspor players also had faced intense racist attacks during a match in early March.
During a match against Amedspor, supporters of Bursa’s football team, Bursaspor, held up posters symbolising extrajudicial killings and abductions that had taken place in Turkey during the 1990s, at the height of Turkish-Kurdish conflict.
“I promise to you. There will be no team named Amedspor in Turkey’s leagues. Diyarbakırspor will take its place in the league but we will not allow a team named Amedspor,” Özdağ said in Bursa as part of his party’s election campaign for 14 May.
Ömer Elaldı, the head of the Amedspor club, took to Twitter to react against Özdağ, who is known for voicing anti-refugee and anti-Kurdish rhetoric.
“Come to Diyarbakır and see whether there is a team named Amed, come with all of your organisation, we have a word to tell you,” he said in an angry post.
Elaldı advised Özdağ to “wash his mouth thoroughly” before mentioning the name of Amed ever again.
