Letter by our President
The foreword of our President Yıldırım Demirören published in the December edition of Beşiktaş magazine:
We are deeply sorry for the unfortunate event that occurred during Beşiktaş – Çaykur Rizespor super league match played in Beşiktaş İnönü Stadium on November 21, 2004. We would like to express our condolences on Cihat Aktaş’s death and wish his family patience.
Even though the event occurred as a result of an individual act, we, as all Beşiktaş supporters feel the pain of that knife deep in out hearts as it occurred at our home.
The hearts of all us and all the parents are bleeding. As Beşiktaş Community, we feel the pain of this sorrowful event more than anybody else since we have lost one of our sons supporting Beşiktaş and express our condemnation.
Despite the fact that all people with common sense accept that Beşiktaş is not primarily responsible for the event, unfortunately our club is punished to play 3 matches without spectators.
We, as Beşiktaş Club, agree to play our matches without spectators if it would help prevent terrorism in sports. As it has been so far, we, as Beşiktaş Club, will always be pioneer in adopting and implementing all the past and future decisions made by the State and Turkish Football Association in order to prevent anarchy and terrorism in sports.
Being aware of its responsibilities, Beşiktaş Club has established for the first time in Turkey a “Committee for Preventing Violence and Terrorism in Sports” jointly with our Presidential Board on June 16, 2004 so as to prevent terror activities in sports.
Furthermore, Beşiktaş increased the number of the security personnel in İnönü Stadium to 400 and started to work with most reliable security companies; while it also increased the number of the security cameras to 64 and turnstiles from 36 to 72.
The event we faced is another unfortunate occurrence of the events that nowadays occur in the streets, trains, parks in many cities of our country and even in Taksim Square, which is the center of İstanbul.
As it is known and will be appreciated, these events that are carried from the streets to stadiums are not nuisances bothering only one club, but social troubles bothering all our clubs and causing significant spiritual and material pain.
The prevention of this social problem is only possible with the fight given by the government, the soccer federation, all clubs, media and people regardless of the club and color discrimination.
Attempts to attribute this individual event to our Society is not compatible with conscience and fairness principles.
Beşiktaş fulfills its duties for the grieving family of our dead child.
Our Board of Directors shall give an appropriate place in our Club his name. This way Cihat AKTAŞ shall always live in our hearts and the world of sports.
Moreover, starting from our first match with spectators, we shall attend together with our children and families among our spectators.
We, as Beşiktaş Society, would like to express once more our sorrow about this event and condolences to his family.
Best regards,
Yıldırım DEMİRÖREN
Beşiktaş JK President