Merih Demiral, Turkey’s goalscorer from their last-16 win over Austria, could face a ban from their quarter-final against the Netherlands on Saturday after Uefa opened an investigation into a gesture with apparent far-right connotations.
Demiral, a centre-back, was the unlikely match winner for Turkey in Leipzig but may be in line for disciplinary action after celebrating his second goal with a “wolf” salute. It is associated with the right-wing extremist nationalist group Grey Wolves and is banned in Austria, where it is punishable by fines of up to €4,000 (£3,400), since 2019.
by IndiaballNerds
19 Comments
Germans didnt drop the eagle despite hitler. We wont drop the gray wolf because some westerner feel the need to tell others how to feel 🤟🤟
I will get downvoted because people don’t like changint their mind once they read something and I’m tired of repeating these to people who only saw their state media’s side but:
Greywolf is the national animal of Turkic peoples, Turkish and beyond. It has always been so because of their shamanic religion.
Last General elections, the leaders of (Akp, Chp, Mhp, Iyip, Zp) %90 of the votes have done the wolf salute. Chp leader is Kurdish and Alevite as religion.
The wolf sign functions like waving a Turkish flag. It is not interconnected into any message like supremacy and it isn’t related to any particular ethnicity other than Turkic peoples like Turkish, Turkmen, Kazakh, Uighur, Azerbaijani etc
Grey Wolves are not even called greywolves in Turkish. The translation is “idealists”. And they aren’t racist, they are quite a diverse group that in truth is islamist. Their founder says Turks who aren’t muslim are corpses(the Turkish word for it is much more vile).
They aren’t a paramiliter organization. They are a joke. Group ot macho cunts. Trust me, I hated my whole life and so does my family who have done local politics for long years.
Petty af
This is ridiculous, pure ignorance.
Grey wolf is the symbol of the country, that comes from a centuries old Turkish legend.
Although the hand gesture is more associated with the nationalist party in Turkey, we see the leaders of other major parties such as AKP and their rival CHP to do it as well.
I’m not a nationalist, not even a patriotic person. Yet I don’t mind the gesture at all. Again, it’s the symbol of Turkish people. It’s absurd UEFA feel the liberty to punish a player for that.
So stupid
Yes that is the Racism
However, it is accept it and honored in Turkey
Hopefully this thread won’t turn into Armenia genocide denialism like yesterday on twitter… right?
I want to know this answer. How is the grey wolf causing an uproar in Germany. I mean what relation to the Germans have with it?
Would be ridiculous to ban him. Just warn him with a fine and move on. Weren’t the Austrian fans singing anti immigrant songs? Clearly directed at their own Turkish immigrant population, sublimated towards the Turkish team. Nothing about that?
As a Turk I say he should definitely be punished.
It’s disrespectful against the millions of Kurdish people in Turkey and other minority groups. I think a ban would be exaggerated because the symbol is allowed in Germany and doesn’t break any law.
Germany and Turkey should have banned the symbol way before. We wouldn’t had to deal with it now.
A big fat fine + apologizing publicly would be enough. If he repeats that, ban him.
The problem isn’t him,he is 1 guy that did something stupid.
The problem is that Turkey found another excuse to just start blaming half of Europe in order for Erdoganopoulos to get +7 votes.
🐺🐺🐺
Ill say, the sign has ancient roots but was also used by rightist political parties around the 1980s till now. Many young people do it with the ancient root context not really thinking of the hijacked rightist context.
So he probably did it with not bad intentions, but the sign itself is a bit interesting with the two contexts so as to say.
Definitely doesn’t warrant a fine or ban. With the given context, someone who draws a cross sign after a goal should be banned, or people who point to the sky as in God should be banned too. Context is important.
But Israel can compete huh? 😀
Democracy but only on the left.
What if he’s just a member of the Bullet Club??
Demiral is gonna pay a fine at best. Media really likes to overexaggerate things when it comes to Turkey.
To put this into perspective, imagine Toni Kroos doing a Nazi salute
As an ethnic minority from Turkey who was cheering the team on non stop from the qualifiers, this has really demotivated me. Just caused division for no reason and ruined a good memory