Ali Koç’s Thank You Call to Frankfurt!

In the UEFA Champions League, our representative Galatasaray suffered a heavy 5-1 defeat away to Frankfurt in their opening match. The yellow-reds took a 1-0 lead in the 8th minute with Yunus Akgün, but conceded goals in the closing minutes of the first half and went into the break trailing 3-1.

In the second half, goals from Burkardt and Knauff sealed a 5-1 loss for Galatasaray, meaning they started their Champions League adventure with a defeat.

Galatasaray's second match in the Champions League will be against English giants Liverpool. The Reds have a perfect record of five wins out of five in the Premier League and defeated Atletico Madrid 3-2 in their first Champions League match.

After the match, Chilean journalist Javier Caceres, who has been working at the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung since 2002, penned a striking article.

According to Caceres’ article, right after the final whistle, Eintracht Frankfurt CEO Axel Hellmann’s phone rang – the caller was former Fenerbahçe president Ali Koç.

Caceres described the moment in his article as follows:
"The final whistle had barely blown when Eintracht Frankfurt CEO Axel Hellmann’s phone rang. On the other end of the line was Fenerbahçe president Ali Koç, and despite the noise inside Frankfurt Arena, Hellmann understood exactly what he was saying. This night was nothing short of a feast for Ali Koç."

"Hellmann’s Eintracht had just beaten Galatasaray 5-1. This delighted Koç, as his club harbors a deep rivalry with their Istanbul neighbor. 'Thank you,' Koç whispered into the phone — five times, thank you!"

In 2021, Fenerbahçe and Frankfurt faced each other in the UEFA Europa League. Before the match, the executives of both clubs had dinner together, and then-president Ali Koç had presented Frankfurt CEO Axel Hellmann with a jersey.