Turkey’s legendary striker Hakan Sukur could face up to four years in prison after the former Galatasaray and Inter Milan star was charged by Turkish prosecutors with insulting President Erdogan on Twitter.
According to a Turkish news agency, the 44-year-old ‘Bull of the Bosphorus’ posted Tweets from his @HakanSukur account which contained “insulting content against Mr President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his son.”
Sukur, who also played for Blackburn Rovers in 2002/03, has claimed that he didn’t intend to offend the increasingly dictatorial Erdogan with the Tweets, of which there is little information. However, these claims were rejected by the prosecutors who have indicted the player, with a court hearing expected to take place in the coming weeks.
Starring for Turkey at the 2002 World Cup finals, where he helped his side to an incredible third-place finish, netting the fastest World Cup goal ever (10.8 seconds) in the third-place play-off with South Korea. Here’s that goal…
After hanging up his boots with Gala back in 2008, Sukur embarked on a political career and was even elected as an MP with Erdogan’s AKP party. However, his resigned two years later after an investigation into corruption which focused on the Turkish PM and his allies. So, there’s obviously a lot of bad blood between the two, which goes some way to explaining the situation.
Anyway, let’s hope Sukur, who has been working on a sports academy project in the USA and may not even be present for the trial, comes out of all this nonsense unscathed. What a ridiculous situation.