Hakan Sukur's drama: from pichichi with Turkey to exile in the US as Uber's driver

The striker who led Turkey to third place in the 2002 World Cup now makes a living as an Uber driver in Washington DC. Hakan Sukur, top scorer in the history of the Ottoman national team, lives at the age of 48 with the same difficulties of any emigrant and blames the situation for the president of his country, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Sukur has detailed his story to the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, where he charges hard against Erdogan. “I have nothing left. He has taken everything from me: freedom of expression and the right to work,” he reveals during the interview. “Can you prove any crime you have committed? No. They only call me 'traitor' and 'terrorist'. I am an enemy of the government, not an enemy of the Turkish nation. I love our country and our flag,” says the former striker of the Galatasaray

Sukur's problems began in 2011 with his leap to politics. After being elected deputy by the AKP, the Justice and Development Party of Erdogan himself, he had to resign two years later for an alleged corruption case. From that moment he aligned himself with Islamist clergyman Fetullah Gulen, one of the great adversaries of the president and leader of the Hizmet movement.

Kanter and Akyol

From that moment, the misfortune of the maximum historical director of the Turkish Super League proved unstoppable. After emigrating to the United States, in 2017 he denounced an attempted coup d'etat, although the media controlled by Erdogan called him a “fugitive from the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO)”.

“I moved to California and started a hospitality business, but it started to fill up with strange people,” said former Miln Inter player and Blackburn Rovers to the aforementioned German medium. “Now I work for Uber and sell books,” he emphasizes after describing that all his houses, businesses and bank accounts in Turkey have been intervened by the government.

The denunciations of Sukur, author of 51 goals in 112 matches with his selection, are quite similar to those of Enes Kanter, pvot of the Boston Celtics, and Cenk Akyol, former eaves of Efes Pilsen. The first refused last January to travel to London to play a game, claiming security reasons. “They have a lot of spas and they can kill me very easily,” he said.