Galatasaray elect Cengiz as chairman

Mustafa Cengiz has been elected as the chairman of Galatasaray after all the votes were counted on Saturday evening.

The 101th ordinary general congress of Istanbul giants Galatasaray elected incumbent Chairman Mustafa Cengiz as chairman after the club won its 21st Turkish Super Lig title last week.

For his three-year term, Cengiz received 2,525 votes, which were nearly twice more than his main opponent and former Chairman Dursun Ozbek’s 1,361 votes. Other candidates, Ozan Korkut and Ali Fatinoglu, received 659 and 207 votes, respectively.

Cengiz took over from Ozbek four months ago and delivered his promise to convene general congress in that period.

Ozbek had served for two years and eight months but was ousted in a snap congress in January, receiving lower votes this time.

Galatasaray were crowned champions in the Turkish Super Lig on May 19 in a tight title race with with their arch-rivals Fenerbahce and Istanbul Basaksehir.

However, the club performed poorly in other main branches of basketball and volleyball this season, with the men’s team even failing to make it to the top eight to compete in the finals of the 16-team Turkish Basketball League (TBL).

The club also has a massive 400 million Turkish lira ($85 million) debt with a budget deficit of TL 70 million projected for this year, TL 14 million less than its annual income. It recently avoided a competition ban from UEFA due to its financial state, which helped the team to save dozens of millions of euros that would come from European competitions and Cengiz to secure a new term.