A young man, educated 45-year-old (born June 10, 1979) Ceyhun Kazanci is now the Vice President of the Turkish Football Federation. He speaks two languages ​​(English, French) and studied Political Science and International Relations at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. Something particularly important nowadays and he is now the person responsible for the Turkish National Teams (All ages) as well as the mediator in the relations with FIFA and UEFA.

At the beginning of their career, he was the director of sales and marketing of the large company IMG DOĞUŞ (2009 – 2015). That year he took over as General Manager of PASSOLİG (2015-20211) is the special service that checks through computers the identification of fans who want to get tickets. In 2021, he became the vice president of ÇAYKUR RİZESPOR. In the same season, however, Besiktas took him (2021-2023) where he assumed the position of Athletic Director.

Mr. Kazanci spoke exclusively to the editor-in-chief of Discoveryfootball.com, Manos Staramopoulos, about the progress of Turkish football, the new competitions that will be hosted by his country, Vinicius and also the European Championship, which will be held in his homeland for the first time.

DF: The Turkish national team recently, thanks to the presence of the Italian, Vincenzo Montella, has found the road to success again... What role do you think played?

R/: «Our coach Vincenzo Montella has great communication skills and our national team players like him very much. Montella has a great contribution to the atmosphere within the team. Being a person from the Napoli area of Italy, he is culturally close to Turkish people and his previous two-year experience with Adana Demirspor proved to be very useful for him in the national team job.   Speaking about technical matters, he makes a big emphasis on the opponent analysis. He is a coach who can apply different strategies, and we can comfortably feel that our team has alternative plans. Our national team achieved many success  under Montella’s guidance, and we have faith in him that he can do even better. He became the first foreign coach ever to lead Türkiye to European Championship s and our team topped a qualifying group for the first time. We beat Croatia and Iceland away for the first time in our history. We defeated Germany away after 72 years.”

DF: You are a new administration, with high goals. What are your priorities?

R/: “Primarily, we want to clinch qualification  for 2026 FIFA World Cup, an achievement which we failed to make for more than 20 years. Then, we want to transform Türkiye into a team that attends every major tournament and further progress through the knockout stages. In addition to this, we want to intensify taking the necessary steps to increase the brand value and brand equity of Turkish Super League. As you know, Türkiye is one of the biggest economies of the global football ecosystem. We want to increase our league’s market value such that we are positioned just under the Big Five. We aim to extend the reach of Turkish Super League so that it is followed by a larger group of fans around the world. We may implement new rules to create a more competitive environment in the league.   Also, the growth and success in women’s football is cheering up our faces. We will evaluate the already-announced strategic plan for women’s football by the previous TFF management. We will strive for long-term and sustainable success with that plan. Since August 2023 our women’s senior national team have always been climbing up in world rankings and we clinched qualification to League B in UEFA Women’s Nations League.   There’s a new Women’s Super League and all top four clubs of the country have women’s teams now which brings excitement to the competition. We also want to record significant achievements in our youth men’s national teams. Our goal is to be present in final tournaments of European Championships and World Cups afterwards.”

DF: We see two young guys Kenan Yıldız and Arda Güler competing and excelling at great clubs in Europe. Behind are there other equally important talents? And what actions does the football federation take about it?

R/: “Obviously, we have other talents and promising players as well. We expect our 2005-born players to serve our national team in the next 15 years. Can Uzun (Eintracht Frankfurt) and Semih Kılıçsoy (Beşiktaş) are the other two players whom we will see making an impact. Especially, we follow the Turkish players based in Europe very closely and are already in good contact with the players with high potential to facilitate their commitment to the Türkiye national team in the senior level.”

DF: Turkey in recent years has successfully hosted the draws of the European draws twice and the final of the Champions League 2 years ago. Now what are your next plans?

R/: "Indeed, Türkiye hosted those events very successfully. In fact, Türkiye’s capability in hosting larger scale events has been proven already and we see ourselves as a leading power in this *eld. We are grateful and proud that UEFA chooses to partner with Türkiye and Turkish Football Federation to organise those such prestigious events. We will host the UEFA Europa League final in 2026 in İstanbul and the UEFA Conference League final the following year. There is a significant progress in the construction of a new stadium in the Turkish capital of Ankara at the moment. If the process is finalized, then the Conference League final will be played there in 2027.    With our proven track record of hosting, we are fully committed and con*dent that those events will be a success.”

DF: Of course we know that together with Italy you will organize the final phase of the 2032 European Championship, where you already have many modern stadiums, but Italy is still quite behind...

R/: “We are fully prepared for EURO 2032. We planned further renovations for the Atatürk Olympic Stadium in İstanbul and I have already mentioned about the new 50.000-seater stadium in Ankara. Other than those, we are ready for the tournament with our existing and modern venues.  We have forged a close relationship with our distinguished partners Italy. We are absolutely happy with this cooperation. The situation regarding the stadiums in Italy is their internal matter. I believe the necessary steps will be taken to ready the venues according to the deadlines.”

DF: How do you judge this year's shaped and bigger Champions League?

R/: “It is a new experience for all of us. We’ll see and draw conclusions from what we have observed. The clubs will now be able to test themselves with a wider range of opponents. For top clubs, it will mean more big matches and for other teams it’s an additional opportunity to play against teams closer to their strength, which promises a feeling of victory for fans and financial benefits for the clubs. The new competition system brings more competitive games for every club across the board, and it raises the prospect for fans of seeing encounters between top teams more often and in the earlier stages.”

DF: Let's stay in the Champions League. Do you think that the same strong forces (Real Madrid, Bayern, Manchester City, Liverpool) will claim the trophy until the end or we might have some surprises?

R/: " I don’t anticipate any surprises. Given the big superiority of top clubs based on  their economic and squad strength against the other oppositions, the possibility of writing a fairy tale is highly unlikely. “

DF: For the Ballon d'Or, which will be awarded on October 28 to the world's best footballer, who do you consider to be the favorite.

R/: “There are many talented players amongst the candidates and our national team captain Hakan Çalhanoğlu is one of them. Naturally, every Turkish person’s heart beats for Hakan in this race. Let’s not forget that after 21 years a Turkish players was shortlisted for Ballon d’Or so we see this as a big pride for us already. Nevertheless, I expect Vinicius Jr. to win the award..”