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Message: [QUOTE="awhom111, post: 3620478, member: 8683"] Turkey has probably been the strongest league over the last few years, but recent financial issues could threaten that. Hatay has been one of the better teams consistently. Turkey probably will not be paying as much this season as they have been in the recent past. Even before the virus, the amount of money available has dried up a bit. Most soccer clubs, including the ones in Turkey are not anything close to self-sustaining either. The big 3 Istanbul clubs do have teams in many sports including women's basketball. The clubs themselves are member-owned and the wealthy members sponsor the various teams and also run for club president, which can be a beneficial title if the teams do well. Other teams in Turkey are sponsored by universities or local municipalities (like the current men's soccer champions, which only has a few thousand fans, but funds the team by taking money directly from Istanbul's taxpayers). About 30-35% of Turkish adults identify with Fenerbahce (Kiah's team) and the about same amount are associated with Galatasaray (Bria's last team) while another 20% or so identify as Besiktas supporters. Fenerbahce's sponsors had opted to spread out the money among their two basketball teams and two volleyball teams because of the better opportunity to win European championships in those sports, but the club's general membership base has decided that they want success in men's soccer above everything else so their newest president is preparing for budget cuts to their other teams. They were doing fine in the early part of the season and then ran out of money so their best players left. They have had a number of good recent seasons, but money issues multiple times. I have not heard of any rules changes so the limit is 4 non-Turks (only two of them can be non-European) and 1 naturalized Turk (like Kiah Stokes or Barbara Turner). The rich teams can carry extra foreigners, especially for European play, but just do not field all of them at the same time in the domestic league. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach

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