Fenerbahçe'de futbolda başarı neden gelmiyor? Ali Koç yanıtladı

I was going to ask one more thing, but I've been explaining for days and don't want to repeat. Let's keep the program on football. If we have reached a point where we can transfer Mourinho, it's because we turned the club around. Not all problems are solved, we still have a long way, but we can breathe and see ahead. Last season's transfers were possible because of this. We're not bound by Financial Fairplay, we don't have to make cosmetic transfers, and we have no pending cases. We've become more institutionalized, our human capital increased, and we operate with 25% fewer staff. These are not trivial. In non-football branches, we're competing not with our eternal rivals but with institutional teams and even the state. In the last Olympics, Fenerbahçe provided the most athletes. Despite the country's economic hardship, pandemic, and earthquake, our broadcast revenue went from $41 million to $78 million. Did Fenerbahçe give discounts or fix the exchange rate? The tax rate rose from 15% to 40%, increasing our tax cost 3.7 times. Interest rates were high, the exchange rate went from 4.5 to 35. These were beyond our control. Our six-year broadcast revenue loss is $100 million. When we arrived, all revenues were pledged. The club had only 7 sponsors across all teams; now we have 42. Not all are Koç companies. Sponsorship revenue rose from €18.7 million to €48 million. Is Koç's money dirty? Back then, 60% of that €18 million came from Doğuş Group. We thank all our sponsors. The club has progressed overall, not just in football. Revenue went from $150 million to over $200 million, transfer market value from $71 million to over $200 million, allowing us to sign players like Tadić, Džeko, and Cengiz Ünder. This didn't happen by itself. We also lost $80 million from the pandemic. For the first time last season, all our revenue goes to the Banks Association via official pledge. We sold players for €56 million, but after agent fees and prior club shares, we don't receive the full amount. We didn't enter the first restructuring because we would have defaulted immediately. The state later made a more realistic agreement. Last year alone we paid 1.5 billion TL in interest. Our football operations are profitable on an operational basis, but when you add interest, we end up at a loss. Since Dursun Bey mentioned Galatasaray pays 100 million TL monthly in interest, we pay similar amounts. Interest rates were 120% when we restructured, now they are around 47-48%, so the trend continues.

I wasn't in management then, so I don't know what kind of pressure there was. But we sometimes express our discomfort in daily football competition. There may be pressure on state institutions. We can still get advertising and sponsorship from all areas of the private sector, thank God. Because this year we have a deficit. We barely kept the ship afloat; next year will be harder. When there is a deficit, you need to find money from somewhere. People say 'Ali Koç is there, Koç Holding is there,' but how far? There is no 'Koç game'.

We managed it. We were able to bring one of the five most important coaches in world history. Is it a big burden? It is a big burden, but I have no doubt that we will see great benefits.