Skip to content
BUSINESS CLASS TOPLANTILARI
December Guest Speaker

Presindent of Galatasaray Sports Club Ozhan Canaydin :
" In his delineation of the innovations during the process becoming a company"

Business Class ToplantýlarýIn the last of the business class meetings of 2007 we hosted Özhan Canaydin, the president of Galatasaray Sports Club and the president of Sports Club Union on December 15, 2007 Saturday at Istanbul Divan Hotel. In the meeting chaired by Prof. Samim Ünan, Canaydin gave a speech entitled “Sports Club Management and Innovative Structuring in the Process of Becoming a Company” and answered the questions of the participants both present and on-line.  A total of 102 prominent businessmen and academicians, 42 of whom were graduate students, from Istanbul, Marmara, Galatasaray, Yildiz Technical, Istanbul Technical,Yeditepe, Maltepe, Sabanci and Koç universities attended the meeting. In addition, 239 on-line participants from various cities in Turkey and from the USA, France, Belgium and Dubai followed the global live broadcast via the internet interactively using the virtual class technology, “Element Virtual Class 2007”, provided by the main sponsor of Business Class Meetings, Element Education Technologies.The president of Galatasaray Sports Club and the president of Sports Club Union, Özhan Canaydin, started his speech by telling the participants that he has been in various positions in many institutions of Galatasaray since 1974 and he has been the founder of the recently constituted institutions of the Club. Having continually undertaken economic and financial responsibilities, Canaydin stated that running a sports club as a company is extremely difficult because of the law on the clubs and associations, which caused some mistakes during his 6-year presidency. He announced with contentment that a New Law for Clubs is being prepared, which would mean a true reformation for the clubs that could hardly be run with the available Law. He also added that they were waiting for the new Law to pass to make certain amendments in the club statute and adapt it to the new Law, and further emphasized that without the new Law clubs could no longer be run economically.

After stating the difficulty of club management, Canaydin stressed the importance of having capital for the clubs, which would be possible with the prospective law. He gave the example of the UK, where the process of becoming companies enabled the foundation of 22 new clubs in the country until 2000.

Canaydin explained that with the authorization they received form the 1997 General Committee of the Club, they started to found their first companies. He added that it was difficult to get the authorization from the General Commmitees of the clubs since these committees are composed of individuals with their own possessions and founding companies in the name of the club entailed sensitive consequences for them. He also stated that, in the name of Galatasaray Sports Club, with the authorization they received, they founded five or six companies and have lately become more advantageous than the other clubs.
 

In his delineation of the innovations during the process becoming a company, Canaydin emphasized the arduousness of the process due to the difficulty of overcoming the conservatism inherent in the clubs. He expressed his hope that the prospective Law could eliminate much of the hardship encountered during the process. He also explained that in the process of becoming a company, Galatasaray Sports Club had to collaborate financially with some foreign partners to provide some financial benefits that could not have been derived from the internal sources, which also resulted in some inconveniences due to the conditions of the time. 
Canaydin expressed that being at the head of such a big community is a great power and that managing a club brought with it a significant populism which might provide personal great benefits if ill-used.
 
Canaydin stated that their objective and obligation was to increase the club budget to three hundred million dollars in 2012. He also added that in 2002 they organized the first Trace and Search Conference in the world and with the new Law such searches could be undertaken.
 
The president Galatasaray Sports Club, Özhan Canaydin categorized club incomes in four groups and pointed out the income form the matches to be the lowest and that from media broadcast to be the highest source of income in these four groups for Galatasaray Sports Club. He also accentuated the special importance of managing the other two groups, income from advertising and sponsorship and income from merchandising.
 
Among the most important innovations that had to be undertaken, Canaydin stressed the improvement of income from the matches and underlined the importance of the stadiums. He said that the stadiums that the clubs use under their own names actually belong to the Department of Youth and Sports. He explained that they have taken the rights of using Ali Sami Yen for 44 years in 1997 and completed the feasibility studies to renovate the stadium; however, as a result of the cost account, zoning status and the problem of traffic jam in the region they opted for Seyrantepe Project.
 
Canaydin defined the stadium to be built in Seyrantepe as a stadium for 52.000 with a sliding electronic roof and said that it would be one of the top ten stadiums in Europe, which they were planning to keep open on 100 to 120 days of the year. He expressed his hope to attract the supporters of Galatasaray back to the stadium, and to that end they were planning Seyrantepe Stadium as a site where they can spend time doing other social activities. Canaydin asserted that Seyrantepe Project will enable them to become the leading club in terms of their income gained from the matches. He said that they had already applied this model in Kayseri and that clubs in Antalya and Bursa were also satisfied with the model. The president of Galatasaray Sports Club and the president of Sports Club Union, Özhan Canaydin, stated that because the most important innovation in income for the sports club is the in income gained form the stadium, all the income-yielding items would be found in Aslantepe Project.
 
Canaydin also mentioned the media incomes, the budget for which did not exceed 20% in Europe but was about 60% in Anatolia, and observed that advertising, sponsorship and merchandising were at quite low levels in cities of Anatolia. Further emphasizing that the advertising and sponsorship as well as merchandising incomes of the four big clubs in Turkey were satisfying, he drew attention to the necessity of Anatolian clubs to improve themselves on these aspects and thereby constitute an atmosphere of competition. Canaydin also pointed out that the prospective law could amend these difficulties and play an important role in the foundation and innovation processes of the clubs’ becoming companies. He also pronounced the necessity for clubs to manage their merchandising activities in a systemized manner and the importance of actualizing these processes at the right time with right decisions based on profitability considerations. With this approach, he explained that by moving the Florya Facilities of Galatasaray Sports Club to Büyükçekmece with a huge investment and by making use of the land in Florya in a more profitable way they could provide added value.

Canaydon also stressed that in order to reach Galatasaray’s 300 million dollar budget target, they had to achieve 100 million dollar income form the matches, 30-40 million dolar from media incomes, which is extremely difficult to actualize. He also underlined the necessity of equating the sportive success and economic strength of Galatasaray in UEFA listing, which are now 10 and 58 respectively.
 
Canaydin finished his words by stating that they were planning to collaborate with universities to enable clubs to acquire a professional identity and to be run professionally, accentuating the importance of cooperation between education and sports to raise professionals in sports. 
 

Main Sponsor



 

Media Sponsors