“The Galatasaray and Fenerbahce derby is the biggest sport event in Turkey,” says Burak Abatay from BBC Turkish.
“Life stops on derby evenings – even the terrible Istanbul traffic is relieved. It is very big tension. The match [last night] was played in this tension.
“There has been a great chaos in Turkish football for a long time. The main discussion is usually about the referees.
“Last season a referee was attacked by a club president in the centre of the pitch. And two teams withdrew from the pitch last season. Another club did the same this season.
“In the middle of this season, foreign referees started to work as VAR referees in all matches, but this did not reduce the controversy.
“President of the Turkish Football Federation Ibrahim Haciosmanoglu stated that the reason for a foreign referee to officiate the derby was ‘to prevent these discussions and not to put the referees in a controversial position’.”
Abatay added: “Galatasaray’s manager Okan Buruk called Jose Mourinho ‘The Crying One’ after the match. He also criticised [referee] Vincic.
“Many football analysts say that Turkish football needs more structural and long-term change.”
And Mourinho’s own club claim change is required, with Fenerbahce vice-president Acun Ilicali claiming there is no protocol for selecting referees in Turkey, “unlike England”.
“In England, if somebody [is] from Newcastle, you cannot be a ref of a Newcastle game,” he told Sky. “[The] problem in Turkey is nobody’s asking referees ‘Which team do you support?’ We don’t know – they can be a Galatasaray fan or Fenerbahce fan.”
Uefa told BBC Sport it “works with its 55 member associations on refereeing”, but the responsibility lies with individual associations to manage the process for its own officials.
In England, professional referees have to declare which teams they support as part of transparency measures – so they avoid games involving their own team.
