The Istanbul club have sold their top scorer in the middle of the season and now find themselves on a losing streak.
After starting off the season with a bang and leading the table for 4 weeks, Kasimpasa now find themselves in 8th place after losing 5 games in a row. The team that humiliated Besiktas by scoring 4 goals against them just before the winter break is now 13 points behind the Black Eagles.
From being just 6 points behind leaders Istanbul Basaksehir, Kasimpasa are now struggling to even draw a game.
What exactly went wrong for the Istanbul club that playing against them now means 3 sure points for their opponents? Look no further than the club’s administration.
In order to understand what is going on at Kasimpasa, we need to hear out the words of one of their former coaches, Riza Calimbay.
After he was sacked by Konyaspor earlier this season for apparently no reason, he appeared several TV channels in the country to explain why he did not deserve to be sacked. In one of those appearances, he gave an example from his Kasimpasa days to explain the mentality of Turkish football executives.
“When I came to Kasimpasa, the team was struggling to keep out of the relegation zone. The chairman asked me to keep the team in the league and he promised me big transfers next season. When the season ended, we finished in fifth place, way above our expectations. Then, when I asked for the transfers, the chairman told me that he no longer wanted to invest in the team, that he had other plans. This is how Turkish clubs are being run,” he said.
Proving Calimbay’s claims right, Kasimpasa sold two of their best performers; the league’s top scorer Mbaye Diagne and his teammate Samuel Emem Eduok. The duo scored more than half the team’s goals yet they were sold after finishing the first half of the season just 6 points behind leaders Basaksehir. If they kept the two, Kasimpasa had a realistic chance of playing in Europe next season.
To make matters worse, the club sold Eduok, one of the most consistent forwards in the league, for only €400,000 to Erzurumspor, who are currently 17th.
The players they signed as replacements instead have failed to replicate the forms Diagne and Eduok. The team went from scoring for fun to not being able to even score a goal.
Suffice to say, current coach Mustafa Denizli would never approve of such transfer policy if it was not forced upon him.
It’s inconceivable that a club would sell the league’s top scorer in the middle of the season, certainly not without bringing in an experienced, in-form replacement. Denizli lost Diagne who scored more goals alone than 7 other teams in the league.
The more interesting part of this story is that Kasimpasa has a history of doing this. They brought in Eren Derdiyok, Ryan Babel and Ryan Donk from the fringes and sold them to bigger clubs for profit.
Financially, Kasimpasa seems to be doing fine, but it is not clear whether they want to be a top football club or the Goldman Sachs of Turkish football.
They do not invest the money they earn from transfers into putting together a better team. The club’s focus seems to be on making more money rather than win titles and this is certainly against the soul of the game. If they are going to sell all of their star players whenever they perform well, how do they expect to ever win any titles?
We need to make sure that clubs are primarily run as football clubs and the priority is always football. Otherwise, the competitiveness and quality of the Turkish Super Lig would be in jeopardy.
