AK PARTY GOVERNMENT MAKES IMPORTANT INVESTMENTS IN SPORT

As Istanbul has become the European Capital of Sports 2012, the opening ceremony of Beylerbeyi Club Sport Schools where the Üsküdar municipality and Beylerbeyi Sports Club would give free sports training to 500 children has taken place in Beylerbeyi 75th Year Stadium. 

In the opening ceremony, Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis indicated that the AK Party Government had made large investments in sports within the past 10 years and added “We say, there is no rest for the weary. We are building new facilities in every region and city. I hope we provide the necessary investments to organize our country to 2020 Olympics and 2020 European Football Championship all together”.

Indicating that Turkey had already become a member of the European Union in sport many years ago, Bagis pointed out that Turkey was a member of the UEFA and said: “A European Union without Turkey can only play to drop from the league. Turkey is essential to play for championship.”

While expressing that they pin their hopes on little children who have just started sport, Bagis said: “Maybe, a number of these children will be our national athletes; maybe they will introduce Turkey to the whole world, and there will be heroes among them!”

Addressing that sport was a platform which had an aspect uniting the people and strengthening the fellowship, Minister Bagis continued his speech as follows:

“On the other hand, sport is the antidotal of racism, discrimination and intolerance. While you are watching a match and when your team has scored a goal, you do not care about the ethnicity and religion of the person beside you. Even if you do not know him or her, you share that happiness together. Color, language and race are not our concern. When (A) National Football Team became the third of the world in 2002, we all citizens cheered up together. (A) National Basketball Team came in second of the world in 2010, we embraced “12 Giant Men” (12 Dev Adam) all together. When Galatasaray won the UEFA Cup, we were proud of that without caring about being the fans of Fenerbahçe, Beşiktaş or Trabzonspor. In London Olympics, we, 75 million people, were all affected when Aslı Çakır Alptekin and Gamze Bulut succeeded those victories. Sport is a very important area which reflects the common language and feelings of humanity. The legendary trainer of NBA Phil Jackson has written a book named “Sacred Hoops”, where he cited from Sheik Galip: “The true happiness for a rain drop is to mix into the sea”. He used this sentence in that book. So, thanks to sport, we remember that each member of this country is a rain drop which all together creates the sea and we want to once again point out that we should support our athletes.”