Sports in Turkey

What sports are played in Turkey?

The state's own register is the countable source. The Spor Hizmetleri Genel Müdürlüğü, the sport arm of the Gençlik ve Spor Bakanlığı, publishes an alphabetical list of the national federations it oversees. Asked to enumerate rather than to count, the register named 63 federations when read on 23 September 2026, alphabetically from Türkiye Atıcılık Federasyonu to Türkiye Yüzme Federasyonu; asked for a total, the same page returned different numbers on successive reads, so the figure here is the enumeration's result and not a total the directorate publishes.^[5] Beside the federations for wrestling (Türkiye Güreş Federasyonu), weightlifting (Türkiye Halter Federasyonu), basketball, volleyball, athletics, boxing, taekwondo, judo, karate, archery and gymnastics, the register carries separate federations for four traditional disciplines — Türkiye Geleneksel Güreşler Federasyonu, Türkiye Geleneksel Türk Okçuluk Federasyonu, Türkiye Geleneksel Atlı Spor Dalları Federasyonu and Türkiye Geleneksel Spor Dalları Federasyonu — and one for esports.^[5]

Football is not administered through that register. The Türkiye Futbol Federasyonu stands outside it; the Ministry's own legislation page lists Kanun No. 3289 and Kanun No. 7405 among the statutes it applies, and a footnote to Kanun No. 3289 records that Article 28 of Kanun No. 3461 of 27 May 1988 provided that the law's provisions on professional football would not apply.^[7][8]

On results, Olympedia's medals-by-sport table for Türkiye carries Olympic medals in wrestling, weightlifting, boxing, taekwondo, archery, judo, karate, shooting, athletics and artistic gymnastics.^[3]

What is the most popular spectator sport in Turkey?

No audited season attendance total for the Süper Lig could be retrieved: the Türkiye Futbol Federasyonu's 2024 activity report publishes no aggregate spectator figure.^[15] Two measured proxies are available in its place, and this page reports both without adjudicating between them.

The first is the price of carriage. The federation announced on 2 March 2024 that the tender for the transfer of Süper Lig and TFF 1. Lig broadcasting rights, package E, had gone to Krea İçerik Hizmetleri ve Prodüksiyon A.Ş. at “sezonluk 182.000.000,00-USD (218.400.000,00-USD KDV DAHİL)”, with 11 March 2024 set for completion of the legal procedures; the announcement does not state which seasons the contract covers.^[14]

The second is the regulator's own survey. The Radyo ve Televizyon Üst Kurulu's Medyametre Medya Kullanım Alışkanlıkları Araştırması 2024 was conducted face to face with 15,766 respondents aged 15 and over across 26 provinces, with fieldwork in January–August 2024, and lists “Spor Yorum Programları” among the television programme types watched at 35.7 per cent.^[16]

The recognised television currency is TİAK, which describes itself as a joint-stock company formed in December 2010 “televizyon izleme araştırmalarını organize etmek ve denetlemek amacıyla”, with advertiser and agency associations and broadcasters among its shareholder groups.^[26] Its 2024 yearbook gives a panel of 4,327 households at 31 December 2024 against a universe of 58,367,000 people aged five and over, and publishes channel rankings only as top-ten tables by rating and share, from which no sports-channel figure could be read.^[27] The public broadcaster's sports service carries standing sections for football, basketball, volleyball, tennis and motorsport.^[28]

How is sport organised in Turkey?

The state under whose name teams are entered changed that name at the United Nations in 2022. The organisation's member-states page lists The Republic of Türkiye and records that “The Republic of Türkiye changed its official name from The Republic of Turkey on 26 May 2022 in a request submitted to the Secretary-General by the country's Minister of Foreign Affairs”; the United Nations country team's own page dates the letter to the Secretary-General as received on 1 June 2022.^[1][2]

The state body is the Gençlik ve Spor Bakanlığı, and the arm that runs sport within it is the Spor Hizmetleri Genel Müdürlüğü.^[5][6] Its authority is exercised under the Cumhurbaşkanlığı decree system introduced in 2018: the Okul Spor Faaliyetleri Yönetmeliği, published in the Resmî Gazete of 2 Kasım 2019, No. 30936, states its own basis as “10/7/2018 tarihli ve 30474 sayılı Resmî Gazete'de yayımlanan 1 sayılı Cumhurbaşkanlığı Teşkilatı Hakkında Cumhurbaşkanlığı Kararnamesinin 189 uncu, 507 nci ve 508 inci maddelerine dayanılarak hazırlanmıştır”.^[10]

The administration has been reorganised twice in living memory, and the consolidated text read for this page is the Mevzuat Bilgi Sistemi text of Kanun No. 3289, Gençlik ve Spor Hizmetleri Kanunu, adopted 21/5/1986 and published in the Resmî Gazete of 28/5/1986, No. 19120. Its own footnote records that the law was formerly titled Spor Genel Müdürlüğünün Teşkilat ve Görevleri Hakkında Kanun and that the change, along with the repeal of its Articles 2 and 3, was made by KHK-703 of 2/7/2018. Article 1 as consolidated now reads: “Bu Kanunun amacı, Gençlik ve Spor Bakanlığında tüzel kişiliğe sahip (…) taşrada (…) özel bütçeli Gençlik Hizmetleri ve Spor İl ve İlçe Müdürlüklerinin kurulmasına, teşkilat, görev ve yetkilerine ait esas ve usulleri düzenlemektir.”^[8]

Clubs and federations were re-legislated in 2022. Kanun No. 7405, Spor Kulüpleri ve Spor Federasyonları Kanunu, was adopted on 22/4/2022 and published in the Resmî Gazete of 26/4/2022, No. 31821; Article 1 states its purpose as regulating the establishment, organs, revenues, budgets, duties and supervision of sports clubs, sports joint-stock companies and sports federations. Article 26(1) provides that “Spor federasyonları, spor dalı ile ilgili faaliyetleri yürütmek üzere kanunla veya Cumhurbaşkanlığı kararnamesi ile kurulur ve kanun veya Cumhurbaşkanlığı kararnamesinin Resmî Gazete'de yayımlanması ile tüzel kişilik kazanır.”^[9] The same law repealed Articles 18 to 21 and 24 to 26 of Kanun No. 3289.^[8]

The National Olympic Committee is the Türkiye Millî Olimpiyat Komitesi, which the European Olympic Committees list at Olimpiyatevi, Ataköy, İstanbul.^[11] On memberships: the committee is listed by the European Olympic Committees, and UEFA records the Türkiye Futbol Federasyonu as founded in 1923, joining FIFA the same year and UEFA in 1962.^[11][12] The committee's own Hakkımızda page gives no founding date and no date of recognition by the IOC, stating only that it has a past of more than a hundred years.^[25]

What are the main domestic leagues and competitions?

The top football division is the Süper Lig. Its governing document for the season read here is the 2024 – 2025 Sezonu Süper Lig Müsabakaları Statüsü, whose Article 1 states that “Süper Lig, Türkiye'nin en üst profesyonel futbol ligidir. Lig'in isimlendirilmesi yetkisi münhasıran TFF Yönetim Kurulu'na aittir”, and that the division was composed of nineteen clubs — the sixteen that remained after 2023–2024 and three promoted from TFF 1. Lig. Article 3 sets a double round-robin and relegates the four clubs finishing sixteenth to nineteenth; Article 12 makes entry to international competition follow the criteria and list set by UEFA.^[13] Because naming rests with the federation's board, the division is marketed under a sponsor's name the statute itself does not carry: the federation publishes that same file under the name Trendyol Süper Lig.^[13] The national cup is the Ziraat Türkiye Kupası.^[17]

Clubs were restructured by Kanun No. 7405, which introduced the spor anonim şirketi, the sports joint-stock company, alongside the association-form club and set rules for both, including budgets, expenditure and supervision.^[9] The basketball and volleyball federations run the senior divisions in those sports; their own sites could not be retrieved, so no league name is given for them here.^[5]

How has Turkey performed at the Olympic Games?

This page takes its Olympic figures from Olympedia and from Olympedia only. Olympedia's two raw tables for Türkiye agree with each other and disagree with its own narrative block, which gives 103 medals and credits wrestling with 66 where the tables give 68. Summing the per-edition table across the rows typed Olympic Games gives 41 gold, 29 silver and 41 bronze, 111 medals; summing the medals-by-sport table for the Olympic Games gives the same 41, 29 and 41. The narrative on the same page states that the nation “won 103 Olympic medals, with 41 golds, all at the Summer Olympics”. This page uses the tables and reports the narrative.^[3]

The distribution is concentrated. Olympedia's medals-by-sport table credits wrestling with 29 gold, 18 silver and 21 bronze, 68 in all; weightlifting with 8 gold, 1 silver and 2 bronze; boxing with 1 gold, 5 silver and 4 bronze; and taekwondo with 1 gold, 3 silver and 6 bronze. Archery and judo hold one gold and one bronze apiece, karate 1 silver and 3 bronze, shooting 1 silver, athletics 2 bronze and artistic gymnastics 1 bronze.^[3] By edition, the largest returns on the table are 1960 (7 gold, 2 silver) and 1948 (6 gold, 4 silver, 2 bronze); the largest medal count is the thirteen of 2020, and the 2024 row carries no gold.^[3] Olympedia types Youth Olympic Games rows separately and this page does not add them.^[3]

One Olympic result has since been annulled by a named body. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported on 18 August 2015 that the Court of Arbitration for Sport had ruled the previous day that Aslı Çakır Alptekin's results from July 2010 onward were disqualified, including the 1500 m won at the 2012 Games, and that she was banned for eight years, the ban to expire at midnight on 9 January 2021, the tribunal's stated ground being anomalies in her biological passport between July 2010 and October 2012 and a second anti-doping rule violation after a first committed in 2004; that account rests on that single report.^[18] Olympedia's per-edition table carries 1 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze for 2012 and this page does not adjust the tables it cites.^[3]

Which athletes and teams are internationally recognised?

Olympedia's list of Turkish medallists at the 2020 Games, held in 2021, records thirteen results. Mete Gazoz won the men's individual recurve archery title and Busenaz Sürmeneli the women's welterweight boxing title. Buse Naz Çakıroğlu took silver at women's flyweight and Eray Şamdan silver in men's kumite up to 67 kilograms. Bronze medals went to Ferhat Arıcan on the parallel bars, to Ali Sofuoğlu in men's kata and to Uğur Aktaş and Merve Çoban in kumite, to Hakan Reçber and Hatice Kübra İlgün at taekwondo featherweight, and to Rıza Kayaalp, Taha Akgül and Yasemin Adar in the super-heavyweight and heavyweight wrestling classes.^[4]

In team sport the documented recent results are in women's volleyball. Volleyball World reported on 3 September 2023 that Türkiye had won the CEV European Championship final in Brussels against Serbia by 25–27, 25–21, 22–25, 25–22, 15–13, Türkiye's score first, over five sets, and that the side had taken the fifth edition of the Volleyball Nations League in July of the same year.^[22]

What major international competitions has Turkey hosted?

Two editions of the Mediterranean Games have been held in the country, at İzmir in 1971 and Mersin in 2013. The awarding body is the International Committee of the Mediterranean Games, which states that it “is the owner of the Mediterranean Games and designates, every 4 years, 6 years before each edition, the city that will be entrusted with the organization of the Games”.^[19]

FISU records the Türkiye Üniversite Sporları Federasyonu as a member association since 1957 and lists a Summer Universiade at İzmir in 2005 and a Winter Universiade at Erzurum in 2011.^[20]

Konya staged the fifth Islamic Solidarity Games from 9 to 18 August 2022, under the Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation, as the European Weightlifting Federation recorded in its notice of the weightlifting programme of 11–15 August.^[21]

What are Turkey's main sporting rivalries?

The recurring domestic fixture is the İstanbul derby between Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray. beIN Sports Türkiye reported on 30 November 2025 that the clubs had met 403 times since their first meeting in 1909, with the 404th fixture due the following day, and that the most frequent result in the series was 1–0, recorded 75 times, ahead of 2–1 on 50 occasions. That count is a single secondary source; it carries no win-and-draw breakdown, and none is supplied here.^[23]

The Süper Lig statute places both clubs in the same double round-robin, so the pairing recurs at least twice a season.^[13] Beşiktaş is the third İstanbul club in that division; no head-to-head record for its fixtures could be retrieved from a federation source.^[15]

What is the role of school and university sport?

School sport is run by the Gençlik ve Spor Bakanlığı rather than by the education ministry whose schools it covers. The Okul Spor Faaliyetleri Yönetmeliği, published in the Resmî Gazete of 2 Kasım 2019, No. 30936, states in Article 1 that its purpose concerns the planning and conduct of the domestic and international sporting activities of institutions attached to the Millî Eğitim Bakanlığı, and in Article 2 that it covers those activities and physical-education activities conducted through play. Under its Article 6 the competitions are organised by tertip komiteleri at provincial and district level, and under Article 13 the age categories are fixed in the application rules issued for each sport.^[10]

University sport sits with the Türkiye Üniversite Sporları Federasyonu, which appears on the ministry's own federation register and which FISU records as a member association since 1957.^[5][20] The directorate publishes school and club participation data as downloadable files rather than as figures on its statistics page, and no participation total is given here.^[6]

Were any sports invented in Turkey?

The claim documented by an instrument is one of heritage recognition rather than of invention. UNESCO inscribed the Kırkpınar oil wrestling festival on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010, on the nomination of Türkiye, under decision 5.COM 6.42; the inscription describes a festival at Edirne at which “Pehlivan (wrestlers) fight for the Kırkpınar Golden Belt and the title of Chief Pehlivan”.^[24] That is recognition of a practice and its festival, not a finding about the origin of wrestling, and the inscription makes no origin claim.

The state's own codification is visible in the federation register, which carries a Türkiye Geleneksel Güreşler Federasyonu for traditional wrestling styles and a Türkiye Geleneksel Türk Okçuluk Federasyonu for traditional Turkish archery, each administered on the same footing as the federations for the Olympic sports.^[5] Bringing a traditional practice under a national federation is codification, not invention.

On a declared national sport, the registers searched for this page were the Ministry's own published list of the statutes it applies and the Mevzuat Bilgi Sistemi texts of Kanun No. 3289 and Kanun No. 7405. Neither statute designates a national sport, and the Ministry's list names no instrument that does.^[7][8][9]