Sport policy in Turkey

Abstract

This paper reviews former and current sport policies in Turkey, focusing specifically on the historical development of sport administrative bodies in Turkey, national government’s administrative system for implementing sport policy, and the intersection of sport policy with relevant government policies. Secondary resources and personal communications with current and former high-ranking Turkish sports administrators formed the bases for the paper. Sport in Turkey is managed, administered and financed mostly by the central government. The General Directorate of Sports is the governmental institution that manages, administers and finances sport under the control of the Ministry of Youth and Sports. Sport policy in Turkey is characterized as emerging rather than established. Implications of Turkey’s recent bids to host the Olympic Games and social–political changes on sport policy are discussed.

Keywords:

• Turkey
• sport
• policy
• government
• Olympic Games
• country-profile

Introduction

Turkey country profile provides an overview of the past and contemporary situation regarding sport policy in Turkey. It has been compiled using mostly secondary sources, although some personal communications with current and former high-ranking Turkish sports administrators were incorporated.

Modern Turkey was founded in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the ‘Father of the Turks’. Under Ataturk’s leadership, the country adopted wide-ranging social, legal and political reforms. After a period of single-party rule, in 1950, it has seen a shift into a multiparty political system. Since then, Turkish political parties have multiplied, but Turkish democracy has been fractured by intermittent military coups (in 1960, 1971 and 1980). Today, Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary republic with a diverse cultural heritage. Turkey has been ruled by the AKP (Justice and Development Party), a centre-right, social conservative party, since 2002. It has developed from the tradition of Islamism, but has officially abandoned this ideology in favour of a ‘conservative democracy’ (Duran 2008).

The vast majority of Turkey’s population is Muslim (99.8%) and, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute, in 2012 the total population of the country was 75,627,387 (Turkish Statistical Institute 2013a). Approximately one-fourth of the population (24.9% or 18,886,575) is between the ages of 0–14 years and 17% are aged between 15 and 24 years with the median age of the general population at 29.2 years.

Since the establishment of the Turkish Republic, sport has been considered a social matter and was first declared as such by Ataturk: ‘The main concern is to ensure Physical Education for all ages of the Turks. All kinds of sports activities must be considered as the main elements of the Turkish youth national decency’ (San 1981, p. 17). Ataturk was clearly trying to promote sport across Turkey’s growing population. In another declaration he mentioned:

I like the athlete who is intelligent, agile and at the same time morally upright. Those who are in charge of organizing sports activities in the Turkish social structure are concerned to win a competition not just for pride but also to glorify the sport life for Turkish children. (San 1981, p. 21)

Despite these declarations, sport can be considered a new policy matter.

Without question, soccer is the most popular sport in Turkey and two former sports ministers (personal communication, 15–16 March 2012) go so far as to state that soccer represents probably the only sport or recognized sporting interest from a political perspective. Due to its profitability as a business, the media coverage of soccer is hugely significant, leading to debates over the non-coverage of other sports in the media in favour of soccer. However, newly established thematic sport channels are serving as an effective media for sports other than soccer. In recent years, basketball, volleyball and tennis have started to gain media coverage.

A brief history of government involvement in Turkish sport

In Turkey, sport is the responsibility of the General Directorate of Sports (GDS), which is accountable to the Ministry of Youth and Sports. The Directorate was formed following the establishment of the Turkish Alliance of Training Associations on 14 July 1922 by 16 sports clubs merging to govern sport. The government first endeavoured to take an interventionist approach in sports policy with the foundation of Turkish Sport Association in 1936, upon the recommendation of the sports council, the members of which were the presidents of sports clubs. The initial intervention was followed by the establishment of the present GDS on 29 June 1938 by Law No. 3530. Sports policy then fell into the hands of the government in 1938 by Law No. 3530, and the General Directorate of Physical Education was established; thus, the government resorted to executing a formal sport policy for the first time (Sümer 1990).

In 1942, new legislation, Law No. 4235, led to the attachment of sport to the Ministry of National Education, where it remained until 1960 when it was reattached to the Prime Ministry (Sümer 1990). The governments of the interwar years were content with a solely reactive legislative approach to sport until the government programme of 1946–1947, which aimed to provide ‘all kinds of sports activities, the establishment of the high institute for physical education to train the teaching staff of schools and clubs, and making attempts at establishing sports fields’ (Fişek 1981).

Prior to 1980, the approach of successive Turkish governments towards sport was that of a facilitator rather than as an active promoter of sport participation. Sport became more centralized during the period 1961–1965, when it became considered a leisure pursuit and material-technical support was provided by the government (Fisek 1998). During this period, sport policy would be formally attached to the programmes initiated by the General Directorate of Physical Education. In addition, a heavy emphasis was placed on the use of statistical studies to evaluate policy from this point forward. Still under this facilitator theme, central government also expressed that more adequate organizational work in the field of physical education would be accelerated and that a programme of sports facility building would encourage universal sports participation both in urban and in rural areas (Acar 1993). A key innovation during this period was that the Council of Ministers, for the first time, included a sports minister of state, hence sports issues were dealt with at ministerial level for the first time when the Ministry of Youth and Sports was established by the second Demirel government of 1969 (GSGM Strategic Plan 2010–2014).

During the 1970s, Turkish sport policy underwent significant change, caused in part by the recognition of sport as a national policy priority, and demonstrated by the steady move away from a ‘sport for all’ policy that had dominated policy interventions up until this point and towards a policy that more closely linked sport, education and health (Fisek 1998). In the course of the third 5-year development plan (1973–1979), the necessity of contributions by all public and private institutions was emphasized to promote sport and make it a part of everyday life, and thus it was decided to increase the hours of physical education courses in schools (State Planning Organization 1972). In addition, organizing and supporting physical education and sports services was regarded as an important public duty both in the government programme and in its implementation. The new constitution of 7 November 1982 was the first to include a specific reference to sport (Gok and Sunay 2010). Thus, for the first time in Turkey, sport was taken under the guarantee of the Constitution. Youth sport was secured by the Constitution Articles 58 and 59, which premised that ‘the state shall take measures to promote physical and mental health of Turkish citizens of all ages, encourage the spread of sports among the masses and protect successful athletes’ (Fisek 1998).

Turkish sport, managed by the General Directorate of Physical Education, was included in the Ministry of National Education, Youth and Sports by legislative decree No. 179 (Demirci 1986) on 14 December 1983. In 1986, the Ministry was renamed the General Directorate of Physical Education and Sports by Law No. 3289 (GSGM Strategic Plan 2010–2014). In 1989, it was renamed the General Directorate of Sports and Youth, due to the involvement of the Prime Ministry’s State Department. The sixth 5-year plan (1990–1994) contained sports-related legislative regulations and indicated that professionalism would be encouraged in the fields available to professionalism. The plan for 2001–2005 indicated that balanced distribution of sports facilities throughout the country would be ensured, and the operation of sports centres would be handed to financially and administratively fully independent sports clubs, federations, private enterprises and local administrations, while the task of inspection would be assigned to the public administration (Demir 2006).

The establishment of the Ministry of Youth and Sports was resolved on 3 June 2011 by the Council of Ministers by virtue of Law 6233 dated 6 April 2011. The General Directorate of Youth and Sports in law no. 3289 on the General Directorate of Youth and Sports, whose organizational structure was amended by legislative decree, was renamed the General Directorate of Sports (Turkish Ministry of Youth and Sport Annual Report 2012). In Turkey, sport today is managed, administered and financed mostly by the central government.

Since 2002, Turkish sports policy has been set in a relatively stable political context due to the continued presence of the AKP in the national government. However, during this time, there have been several sports ministers, few of whom have served for more than 2 years.

Since the 1990s, there has been some progress made in Turkish sports development policy. As discussed in detail later, these have been initiated alongside the repeated attempts of Istanbul to host the Summer Olympic Games. However, the underlying problem of policy advances has been the absence of any real sporting culture in Turkey in terms of participation and in addition a lack of centralization in sports policy. Hence, the attempt has been to fast-track processes that occurred over much longer time periods in other nations, such as the 100 Volunteer 100 Facility Project that aimed to build new facilities and recruit volunteers in a short time period to act as a catalyst to a sporting culture. However, unlike the state-led facility building programmes seen in nations such as the United Kingdom that occurred in the 1970s (see Bloyce and Smith 2010), this programme aimed to identify high-profile, private sector ‘volunteers’ with access to resources, who would then be asked to contribute funding for the building of sports facilities.

During the 2000s, a series of important laws related to sports were enacted in Turkey. The first of these laws was the Authorization of Federations for Sport Management (decentralization), which was accepted in 2004. This law, whilst important in shaping decision-making and resource allocation in sport (Erturan et al. 2006), did not necessarily achieve its objectives, with only a small number of federations able to generate their own resources. On the whole, most federations remained dependent on government subsidies to continue operation.

In addition to the attempted decentralization of sports federations, further laws enabling private sector companies to receive tax breaks in return for sports investment were passed. With these amendments, the scope of youth and sports activities, which sponsors can support, has been widened and the tax aspect of sponsorship has been re-regulated. However, sports activities, for which sponsorship is available, must be set in such a framework to provide convenience in tax payments that will cover all sports activities (Imamoglu 2009)

Current administrative structure and funding

The fairly recent appreciation of sport participation, in addition to the traditional discourse of elite success, has led to a rather complex situation regarding the structure of sports organizations in Turkey. As expected in an emerging policy context, there exists some overlap and considerable debate as to the role of particular sport governing bodies, the most significant of which are discussed in the following.

The current range of organizations

The GDS operates under the Ministry of Youth and Sports. GDS is the governmental institution, which manages, administers and finances sports under the control of the central government. The responsibilities and duties of GDS include the following:

• Organizing physical activity, games, gymnastics and sport activities that contribute to the physical welfare of the Turkish community

• Regulating the sport education programmes

• Providing necessary equipment for all kind of sport activities

• Programming the national and international sport activity schedules of all educational institutions

• Educating sport instructors, trainers and coaches

• Providing licences for sports clubs and athletes, making the necessary controls

• Setting the regulatory obligations for sport and health clubs

• Regulating the finance of sport through the national sport lottery

• Providing books, films and other educational documents for developing all kind of sports

• Managing national and international sport events that are held in Turkey

• Rewarding successful sports clubs, institutions or athletes etc.

After the authorization of federations for sport management (decentralization), a significant part of the tasks assigned to GDS was conferred to the self-regulating federations. However, it has been concluded that there was no overarching and consistent approach by the GDS in its relationship with the self-regulatory federations during this transformation, with the consequence that problems were experienced with some practices of GDS considered to be interventions that undermined the self-regulatory nature of federations (GNAT Assembly Research Commission Report 2011).

Table 1 shows the changing landscape of Turkish sport administration.

Table 1. The changing landscape of Turkish sport administration.

Name of the institution(s) with responsibility for sport	Time span	General policies/responsibilities
Turkish Alliance of Training Associations	1922–1936	Sport governance
Turkish Sport Association	1936–1938	Central government’s interventionist approach in sports policy
General Directorate of Physical Education	1938–1942	Formal sport policy for the first time
General Directorate of Physical Education (attachment of sport to the Ministry of National Education)	1942–1960	To provide all kinds of sports activities, the establishment of the high institute for physical education to train the teaching staff of schools and clubs and making attempts at establishing sports fields
General Directorate of Physical Education (attachment of sport to the Prime Ministry)	1960–1965	Sport became more centralized
Ministry of Youth and Sports + General Directorate of Physical Education	1969–1983	Sport issues were dealt with at ministerial level for the first time
	1970s	Recognition of sport as a national policy priority and demonstrated by the steady move away from a ‘sport for all’ policy
	1973–1979	Promote sport and make it a part of everyday life – organizing and supporting physical education and sports services
	1982	Sport was taken under the guarantee of the Constitution for the first time with the objectives to promote physical and mental health of Turkish citizens of all ages, encourage the spread of sports among the masses and protect successful athletes
Ministry of National Education, Youth and Sports + General Directorate of Physical Education	1983–1986
Prime Ministry’s State Department + General Directorate of Sports and Youth	1986–1989–2001	Professionalism would be encouraged in the fields available to professionalism
	2001–2005	Balanced distribution of sports facilities throughout the country would be ensured, and the operation of sports centres would be handed to financially and administratively fully independent sports clubs, federations, private enterprises and local administrations
Ministry of Youth and Sports + General Directorate of Sports	2011 to present

Another important issue that is stated within the GNAT Assembly Research Commission Report (2011) is that despite the recent attempt to build more sport facilities, increasing the number of employees at the same rate is not possible; there are 9029 facilities but there is almost one employee for two facilities and thus the General Directorate stated that the personnel requirements should be met as soon as possible in terms of quantity and quality.

The National Olympic Committee of Turkey (NOCT) operates within the confines of the limited financial support it receives from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), along with private sponsorships it has secured. However, in line with the recent elevation of Olympic hosting to the domestic political agenda, the current policy discourse has led to increased state intervention in terms of funding of the NOCT so that its domestic and international activities may continue (GNAT Assembly Research Commission Report 2011). Within Turkey and aside from the activities associated with NOCs such as the theme of Olympic Solidarity, the NOCT also offers expertise and advice to sport organizations in sports law, training and fair play.

Under the remit of the GDS are the Turkish national sports federations. Self-regulatory federations started when the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) became self-regulatory after enactment of Law 3813 in 1992. Other federations were included in 2004 after an amendment to Law 5015 and Organization Act 3289; 58 out of 60 sports federations became self-regulatory (GNAT Assembly Research Commission Report 2011). Each has a responsibility for one or two sports disciplines and exists to offer technical and administrative services to their respective sports. Current policy discourse in Turkey concerns the regulation of professional and amateur sports and the GDS is engaging in considerable debate over whether the federations that oversee professional sports should be different in their work, duties and areas of responsibility from those that oversee amateur sport. Leadership boards of these federations are elected every 4 years, usually to coincide with Olympic cycles, and the GDS has a block, but still minority, vote in each election, with the majority of the votes lying in the hands of the individual sports clubs active within each sport (GNAT Assembly Research Commission Report 2011). Sports federations are in charge of important tasks such as ensuring balanced expansion and development of the related sports disciplines throughout the country, making all kinds of arrangements for this purpose, designing projects, making and enforcing decisions, training referees and trainers. They are directly accountable to the GDS and hence to the youth and sports minister.

At the government level, the responsibility for sport, particularly physical education, lies with both the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Ministry of National Education. Respectively, they direct all tasks and services related to physical education, sport and scouting activities. The principal debate surrounding both organizations was the provision of school sport and from 2005 sport activity classes could be scheduled as elective courses in schools (GNAT Assembly Research Commission Report 2011). However, by 2010, the provision was cancelled for children in grades 1–5 and reduced for older students. The motivation for these changes was that concerns had been expressed as to the course load for older children, especially given the paramount and increasing importance of university entrance examinations. Further, it was perceived by some education administrators that sport was often in the hands of non-specialists (GNAT Assembly Research Commission Report 2011). As a result, school sport in Turkey is recognized as inadequate. Sport still sits outside of traditional academic programmes with students often forced to choose between sport or school work (GNAT Assembly Research Commission Report 2011).

There are currently 12,364 registered sports clubs in Turkey with an additional 572 youth clubs that are directly affiliated to the GDS (General Directorate of Sports 2013). Aside from being accountable to the GDS, local authorities also exert some control over sports clubs. Turkey’s sports clubs are required to submit annual accounts to the relevant local authority, with the local authority reserving the right to carry out audits of the clubs as they see fit. Sports club income comes from limited sources such as subscription fees collected from members, revenue from matches, coaching and donations and other financial aid. However, recently, the revenue earned by the clubs has increased significantly with the popularization of income-generating instruments such as gambling games, television broadcasting fees, sponsorship, sports equipment and souvenirs, although these benefits are more overt in the highly professional sports whereas the amateur sports clubs struggle to increase their income (GNAT Assembly Research Commission Report 2011). Television broadcasting revenue, branded products sales, match revenues, combined card sales and hiring and selling athlete contracts are now the most important sources of income for the sports clubs. Although the financial aid offered to the sports clubs by GDS in the past 10 years has increased year by year in total amount, the grant per club has actually reduced since the number of sports clubs has increased. Sports clubs use the sports facilities owned by the GDS, local authorities and General Directorate of Treasury and Associations by leasing, tenancy rights and occupying. The majority of the sports equipment used at these facilities are provided by the local authorities, federations and GDS.

Current sport policy priorities

Sport policy in Turkey can be characterized as emerging rather than established. Evidence to support this supposition can be provided by the low levels of sport participation among the public (albeit with some notable recent increase in youth sport club membership) and inconsistent achievement in elite sport. There are currently 3.4 million registered sports participants, although only 1.8 million are considered to be ‘active’ (General Directorate of Sports 2013), and this includes both school sport and football, the latter of which is by far the most popular participatory sport in Turkey. Given Turkey’s emerging status, there is much debate amongst sports policy-makers over where priorities should lie, especially between school sport, mass participation and elite sport. As indicated in detail later, while there is acceptance that sports should be developed, and of the benefits that participation can bring, the sport policy landscape is sometimes muddled, especially in terms of which departments or agencies are responsible for generating and allocating resources.

The authorities questioned for the purposes of this article were asked about their priorities in corresponding internal sport policies. Collectively, they contend that the internal sport system of Turkey has to be developed further. It was agreed that the origin of elite sport development lies with the sports clubs, but their total membership is low, especially compared to England, Germany and Spain. In addition, many of the sports clubs are faced with financial difficulties; they need to be financially supported to survive and thrive (Sahin, personal communication, 15 March 2012). The current Sports Minister Suat Kılıç mentioned during the annual meeting of the TFF in 2012 that he and his advisers were working to develop legislation that would provide a new financial structure and management approach to the sports clubs (Turkish Ministry of Youth and Sports 2012). The non-profit sports clubs in Turkey are managed according to the ‘law of associations’ (General Directorate of Associations 2004); however, there are some explicit disadvantages of this law. It is highly bureaucratic and the managers or presidents are not financially or politically independent. If the law for sport clubs is changed, it would help club officials to find new revenue sources and to manage the club more efficiently. Former Sports Minister Basesgioglu (personal communication, 15 March 2012) agreed to this proposed change by stating: ‘we should institutionalize the sport clubs as soon as possible’. A similar view was shared by former Sports Minister Ozak regarding sport as a driver for social development (personal communication, 16 March 2012):

We can use sport as an educational and socialization tool for integrating people into the society. We are in a process of finishing our conflicts with Kurdish citizens; this process is called democratic expansion. Sport can contribute to the democratic expansion process and we can decrease violence and crime within the community by using sport as a tool.

The latest findings of the Turkish Youth Policy support these opinions, according to the Youth Council Report (2012) conducted by the Ministry of Youth and Sport. Goals for the country’s youth focus primarily on integration of youth into the society, increasing their contribution to the political decision-making their democratic consciousness.

One current policy priority exists in the area of increasing the quantity, quality and standardization of school sport. The Turkish education system has faced many radical changes during the past 25 years, most due to the competing political priorities of the government ruling parties. Gedikoglu (2005) argues that there exists a politicized educational system in Turkey, in which governments change the educational system according to their political beliefs and even for religious reasons.

According to the Turkish Statistical Institute (2013b), there were over 25 million Turkish students in the country’s pre-university education system in 2012. The Turkish educational system is based mainly on centralized placement exams that occur at the 6th, 7th and 8th grades when children are mainly in their early teens. Every year over 1.5 million students, 18 years of age, take part in the university entrance examination. The exam is highly competitive, and much of the education system is geared towards academic success, often at the expense of other endeavours, including sport and the arts. In 2012, of the 1,787,582 exam students, 357,342 were able to embark upon a 4-year bachelor degree (Student Selection and Placement Center 2012).

In addition to the competitive education system that places little emphasis on sport, there is a general lack of opportunity for children to take part in sports for all (Ozak, personal communication, 16 March 2012). During correspondence with former Sports Minister Ozak, he noted that ‘although we do offer sport classes, most of them remain ineffective for winning new participants in sports’. There is also a severe disparity in the sporting opportunities for children in the larger cities compared to those in rural and regional locations. In Istanbul, Ankara or Adana, most of the schools suffer from insufficient space to practice sports, whereas in rural areas, there is space, but insufficient financial resources for developing sports and play spaces. As a result, Turkey has a disjointed and inappropriate environment for active participation in sports at school level.

The sports curriculum in Turkish schools presents further confusion. There have been ongoing debates surrounding the duration of sports lessons at all levels of compulsory education. Since 2003, compulsory sporting lessons have fluctuated between 1 and 2 hours per week (Turkish Ministry of Education 2010). In addition, the number of lessons per week has been a contentious issue, as has the source of funding for this provision. More recently, free of charge, extra-curricular sports schools were offered to children, which were funded by the ‘construct, donate and cut your expenses from your tax’ project, orchestrated by the government to attract private sector funding to facilitate sports.

As discussed later, the continued bids by Istanbul for the Summer Olympic Games have heavily influenced the sport policy discourse within Turkey, and school sport has not been exempted from such influence. Indeed, many of the most effective projects to entice young people into sports have been orchestrated by the Turkish Olympic Committee. One such campaign, ‘Oli’, has been successful in providing physical education to 650,000 primary school students with a further 1.5 million planned within the short term (Erdener, personal communication, 10 April 2012). Such reliance on nongovernment resourcing is typical in school sport and it is anticipated that any future successful Olympic bid will involve sponsorship revenues reinvested in youth and school sport (Erdener, personal communication, 10 April 2012).

The school sport system illustrated earlier adversely impacts elite athlete development, as participation in elite sports depends in many developed countries on school sports (Kirk and Gorely 2000). In the Turkish system, the lack of a unified sports development strategy that is integrated with school sport means there is a deficiency in talent detection, talent nurturing and integration of talents into the sport system. Turkish sport development depends mainly on voluntary sport clubs and, with restricted sources, most of the sport clubs are only able to choose the athletes from the pool that is self-created. In addition, the lack of a centralized talent identification system means that participants are not actively recruited to sport and hence only receive support once they have independently entered the system.

Turkey’s sport policy is not precise, leading to deficiencies in its national sports management system. The government mainly manages sport in Turkey. Basesgioglu (personal communication, 15 March 2012) noted that despite the formal autonomy of Turkish sport federations, there is a dependence on the Ministry of Youth and Sport caused by the federations’ lack of financial resources. Erdener (personal communication, 10 April 2012) concurs, stating that the federations are not able to create their own financial sources because of low participant numbers and little television coverage. As a result, there are few sponsors for Turkish sport, and high levels of state subsidies are therefore required. Basesgioglu (personal communication, 15 March 2012) continued: ‘The sport federations have to institutionalize and become financially independent’. Erdener concurs: ‘Turkey has a sport policy which works by the dominancy of state’ (personal communication, 10 April 2012). Unlu and Erdener note ‘there are many examples of political [investments] which are not followed by [financial] investments in the past; we are faced with the discontinuity/lack of sustainability of the projects’ (personal communication, 10 April 2012). Both authority figures mentioned that there is a complicated bureaucracy in facility management and the general responsibilities in sport management are chaotic. Besides, Erdener (personal communication, 10 April 2012) claims that the sports managers and policy-makers in the Turkish system are insufficient in numbers and inefficient in practice and that the responsibilities of the National Olympic Committee are restricted, in comparison to developed countries.

At the elite level, all ministers corresponded with for this study claimed to have provided important financial incentives for Turkish sports personnel, with one commenting that ‘the bonus for international sport achievements were so high, that the athletes were losing their motivation after an achievement’. According to analyses of the awards provided by the government during the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games, Turkey’s award to the medal winners was fourth highest in the world, amounting to €585,000 (Develioglu 2012). Although the ministers were aware of the perceived importance of school sport as a foundation for elite sports, little has been done to form a system through which talent can be identified and nurtured. Instead, much of the focus has been on elite athlete policy, and thus the funding available for sports federations has been linked to Olympic medals, rather than efforts to increase participation.

To motivate and support elite athletes, some job opportunities were created for athletes within governmental departments (Ozak, personal communication, 16 March 2012). Those who recorded important athletic achievements and demonstrated promise were recruited to these positions, providing both financial security for existing athletes and motivation for aspiring athletes as the jobs continued long after the athlete’s competitive career was completed.

Aside from the mechanics of elite athlete support described earlier, a recent trend in Turkey has been the recognition that positive role models may play an important part in recruiting new participants to sport. In the example of tennis, Marsel Ilhan has achieved, for the first time in Turkish tennis history, a top 100 world ranking (ATP 2013). As a result, media coverage of tennis has increased significantly, and Ilhan has received several sponsorship opportunities. Although there is no clear evidence to prove an increase in tennis participation was due to his new-found stardom, Turkish Tennis Federation (TTF) officials contend that tennis in Turkey has gained recognition during Ilhan’s high-performance period. However, temporary success in some sport disciplines is not enough to sustain sport development in the long term.

From a theoretical perspective, it could be argued that Turkish sport policy is currently dominated by the belief in the ‘virtuous cycle of sport’ (Grix and Carmichael 2012). In other words, elite athlete success serves as a catalyst to grass-roots sport participation. The relatively large financial support to athletes and the continued attempts to host the Olympic Games have been underpinned by a desire to increase participation in sport. To this extent, Law 3289 was passed, which obligated larger companies (those with more than 500 employees) to build sports facilities, again representing a reliance on the private sector for new provision. This law has been met for the most part with a negative response from company owners, who largely refuse to make such investments.

Emerging themes in Turkish sport policy

The dominant discourse of recent Turkish sport policies has been the desire to host the Olympic Games in Istanbul. As of December 2013, it is unclear whether Istanbul will bid for a fourth consecutive time, but the place of the Olympics in providing the context for most policy initiatives is certain. Aside from the Olympic Games, further emerging policy trends exist in the areas of health and elite sport development. As discussed earlier, part of the problem in the current system is that decision-makers have attempted to play ‘catch-up’ with other nations by implanting participatory, elite and school sports systems despite sport achieving a fairly insignificant place in the culture of Turkish citizens. Many of the emerging trends in sport policy seem aimed at addressing this concern.

It appears clear that grass-roots participation is a desired outcome and that this can only be achieved when sport achieves a higher level of cultural significance amongst the Turkish public. To achieve grass-roots participation, policy-makers are embarking on a much more strategic investment in major sports events, elite sport development and possibly another Olympic bid. All interviewees spoken to for this research shared the sentiment that elevating the international reputation of Turkey would also help change the current attitudes of the Turkish population with regard to sport. There was also a shared belief that many of the recent single-sport world championships hosted in Turkey had already begun this process.

However, these policies have not gone without criticism. According to Erdener (personal communication, 10 April 2012), to achieve a successful sport policy, Turkey must first obtain a sustainable internal sport management system, one in which all different types of institutions such as the Ministry of Youth and Sport, Sports Directory, municipalities and other local institutions and civil society organizations work and act in coordination. He continues:

We should understand that there isn’t any other way except fully obeying the international rules and regulations. Because sport in Turkey is almost fully managed by the state, the investments are made according to the government’s political priorities. In some cases we invested a lot for local events. For these, people convince the decision makers that such an event can contribute to the Olympic candidacy of Turkey but the reality is the reverse. Our approach is emotional. But we should be objective and classify our priorities, prepare sustainable development plans for leaving a legacy for the future. If we would like to be a dominant country in global sport, then we should increase our power within the international sport arena. It is much easier to convince people from the inside compared from the outside. Our lobbying power in global sport has to increase.

The professionalism of sport in Turkey seems to be a criterion that still needs to be developed. Erdener described the profile of state department sport managers:

In past we had sport managers who were able to speak a few foreign languages, and had relevant experience in sport field. If we compare these people with those actual ones, we can see that the Turkish sports model is aiming to protect its status quo, instead of supporting the better, more experienced, more effective ones who can contribute more to the international reputation of Turkey.

Further questions arise here about the quality of education of sport management departments in Turkish universities and about the selection processes and criteria for sport management professors.

Conclusions

While Turkey’s sport policy is still evolving, there are some issues that have more pertinence and relevance than others. In this case, the continually changing nature of school sport, lack of continuity in general sports policy and a reliance on private organizations to fill funding voids left by the lack of public sector investments clearly impinge on the main aim of current policy: To increase mass participation in sport. Evidence is presented as a belief in what Grix and Carmichael (2012) referred to as the ‘virtuous cycle of sport’ whereby policy-makers believe that elite success (including hosting the Olympic Games) can act as an automatic catalyst to increase participation, but the lack of equality of access and currently disjointed policy arena have continually undermined this in Turkey.

Further, it has been argued that sport in Turkey has gained greater salience as a government policy concern during the past decade. There is a direct government involvement in every discipline, level and area of sport. Hosting the Olympic Games was the most important motivation behind the latest investments by Turkey in sport. Despite a generally youthful population, Turkey has low sport participation rates in different levels of sport, and this is one of the major problems surrounding Turkish sport development. The incompatibility of the Turkish education system with sport, and central government’s desire for active sport participation, creates a dilemma for young people keen on developing mind and body.

According to a report conducted after the London Olympics by the Istanbul Chamber of Certified Public Accountants (ISMMMO 2012), the total consolidated budget of sports between the 2008 and 2012 was 4.728.235.000 TL (US$ 2.62 billion). This amount includes various expenses for hosting international sport events, e.g., FIBA World Championships 2010, WTA Championships 2011–2013 and Universiade Winter Games 2011 Erzurum. The government intervention in sports is considerable because only a few sport disciplines are able to generate their own financial resources (e.g., football, tennis and basketball). The rest try to develop and manage their sport disciplines exclusively by government subsidy. Compared to a sum of £75 million in direct financial support to UK athletes and the cost incentive of an Olympic gold medal – approximately £2 million (Houlihan and Green 2008) – Turkey’s expenditures are enormous.

Turkey has hosted several international sport events since 2010 including the Mediterranean Games 2013 in Mersin, FIFA U20 World Championships, WTA Championships 2011–2013 and World Archery Championships in effort to raise its global awareness, image and standing as a sporting nation worthy to host an Olympic Games. Turkey’s willingness to bid and host international events in the near future is in question. After losing the Olympic Bid for the fifth time, authorities are considering focusing on increasing sport participation, elite athletes development and facilitating sport in rural areas instead of hosting expensive international sport events. As Turkey examines sport policies from other western countries, we envision Turkey’s sport policy will adopt a grass-roots and school-based youth sport development priority that is likely to emerge by 2020. Turkey’s future sport policy will emphasize and resource sport for girls and persons with disabilities as a matter of equality and public health, to grow the base of sport enthusiasts and empower these segments of the population to make positive contributions in the Turkish society.