Economics

Investment Bank’s Soccer Deal Gets Fans’ Red Card: Turkey Credit

Provide news feedback or report an error

Confidential tip?

Send a tip to our reporters

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

By Onur Ant, Selcan Hacaoglu and Isobel Finkel

April 17, 2014 at 9:00 PM UTC

Updated on

April 18, 2014 at 11:46 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

Mandatory ticket-payment cards for Turkey’s soccer league are spurring protests from fans who say the passes could be used for surveillance, while forcing them to pay the bank running the system a commission on every sale.

Starting this weekend, soccer fans must buy a so-called Passolig card from investment bank Aktif Yatirim Bankasi AS, owned by Calik Holding AS, which until December was run by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s son-in-law. Fans will pay between 15 liras and 25 liras ($7-$12) for the card, and a fee of 2 liras for every ticket.