"People wreck their careers messing around on their phones, sure, and relief pitchers spike random pitches and risk both their careers and their sport's integrity, marginal wing players wreck their lives by being weird -none of it is ideal, but it is also all very low effort. The FBI might be smug about what it claims to have found in the NBA and MLB, but consider what our Turkish brethren are doing with their entire soccer industry."
"The Athletic's Colin Millar reported on Tuesday that the Turkish Football Association has suspended 1,024 players accused of match fixing. This came a month after Ali Rampling, also of The Athletic, wrote this story for the same publication about 149 match officials being suspended for the same offenses. There is a political context to all of this-in an unrelated trial, prosecutors sought 2,352 years of jail time on corruption charges against the mayor of Istanbul, who happens to be the foremost political rival of Turkey's authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan."
Match-fixing allegations in Turkey have reached unprecedented scale, with the Turkish Football Association suspending 1,024 players and 149 match officials previously suspended. Prosecutors have sought 2,352 years of jail time in an unrelated trial against the mayor of Istanbul, a leading political rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, highlighting a charged political backdrop for corruption claims. Nearly 1,200 people across four leagues have faced suspension, including 27 from the top league and players from Besiktas and Galatasaray. Officials are accused of manipulating results nationwide, suggesting systemic problems in Turkish football that far exceed isolated individual scandals.
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