Galatasaray said allegations that its vice president, Maruf Güneş, placed a bet on Fernando Muslera’s penalty kick in the 18 May 2025 match against Kayserispor were false. The club said the claims were not based on any information or documents from the investigation file and accused unnamed people and accounts of circulating falsehoods to mislead the public and target its managers.
According to a statement carried by Haberler, Galatasaray said the campaign amounted to a clear perception operation against the club. It said it would file necessary criminal complaints and take legal and criminal action against those producing, spreading or circulating false information, especially on social media.
The club also said it had not issued a fuller response earlier because of confidentiality and restriction orders in the investigation file. It said it had respected those limits to avoid comments that could affect the integrity of the inquiry, and added that its trust in the Turkish judiciary was complete.
Earlier remarks reported by 12punto on 18 July were more measured but pointed in the same direction. Metin Öztürk, Galatasaray’s second president, said Güneş works with the club at Sportif AŞ and has served it for many years. He said the club was waiting for the legal process to end, that it had full confidence in the courts, and that, from what was visible in the public domain, the allegations appeared to involve low-amount betting transactions from five years ago.
The dispute lands against the backdrop of a far wider betting scandal in Turkish football. BBC Sport reported that the Turkish Football Federation suspended 1,024 players from its professional leagues and later handed bans to 102 players from the top two divisions for betting-related activities.
One of those detained was Galatasaray’s 23-year-old defender Metehan Baltaci, who admitted placing bets as a youth player but denied betting on his club’s matches after joining the senior squad. Galatasaray assistant manager Ismael Garcia Gomez said the scandal was a very bad image for Turkey and that very strict sanctions were needed to restore trust.
The scale of the problem has also spread beyond players. The Guardian reported that an internal investigation found 371 of 571 referees across the professional leagues had betting accounts and that 152 were actively gambling. It said seven top-tier Süper Lig referees were among those active bettors, and that the crackdown had led to suspensions for 149 referees and assistant referees.
The Guardian also reported that one official had placed more than 18,000 football bets over five years, while 42 officials had bet on more than 1,000 matches each. Galatasaray said it would not leave any attack on its corporate reputation unanswered and would exercise all its legal rights.
