“Hooliganism” will soon be a thing of the past in both Turkish football and Turkish politics, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said March 20 at a symposium on football in Istanbul ahead of the April 16 constitutional referendum, suggesting that “violence” and “coups” would no longer get people anywhere. “As the quality of politics improved, our nation eliminated those who believe in getting power via rigging, cheating, coups, threats, destructive politics and no elections”, the president told the meeting of top football players and administrators. We have still not been able to bring the Olympics to our country; but you know what intrigues we went through then. Even though we deserved it, we were not given the Olympics”, he said.
