Süper Lig 2026/27 (M)

On 21 February 1959, with İzmirspor against Beykoz in İzmir, Turkey kicked off a national league. Until then the title had been shared out among city championships, and UEFA had just ruled that only national champions would enter the European Cup: Turkey had to manufacture one. That first edition was settled over two legs at Dolmabahçe, Galatasaray taking the first 1-0 and Fenerbahçe answering with a 4-0 to take the title.

What followed is a statistical anomaly. Galatasaray hold 26 league titles, Fenerbahçe 19 and Beşiktaş 14: fifty-nine of the 68 seasons played have ended with three clubs from the same city. Only eight titles have ever left Istanbul, and seven of them belong to Trabzonspor, who broke the monopoly in 1975/76 with 43 points from 30 matches. The eighth went to Bursaspor in 2009/10, by a single point on the final day.

The moment that defines the league was not a goal. On 3 July 2011 police opened a case covering 19 fixed matches, and within a week dozens had been detained — among them Aziz Yıldırım, president of a Fenerbahçe side that had just won the league level on 82 points with Trabzonspor and ahead on goal difference: +50 to +46. The federation withdrew Fenerbahçe from the 2011/12 Champions League and UEFA slotted Trabzonspor into their place; CAS upheld a two-year European ban in 2013. The title itself never moved: in 2019 CAS threw out Trabzonspor claim on the grounds that they had no standing to bring it. In Trabzon they still count it as theirs.

On 26 April 2026, at RAMS Park, Galatasaray beat Fenerbahçe 3-0: Victor Osimhen, Barış Alper Yılmaz from the spot and Lucas Torreira, with Ederson sent off on 62 minutes. The following day Fenerbahçe sacked Domenico Tedesco. Two weeks later a 4-2 win over Antalyaspor sealed the league with a round still to play.

Galatasaray finished 2025/26 on 77 points, three ahead of Fenerbahçe (74) and eight ahead of Trabzonspor (69). It was their 26th title and Okan Buruk's fourth in succession, matching the club's own ceiling: the four straight that Fatih Terim delivered between 1996 and 2000. They scored 77 goals — precisely as many as Fenerbahçe — and conceded only 30, at a time when no other defence in the league went below 32. Fenerbahçe lost just two of their 34 matches and still came second: eleven draws cost them the title. Beşiktaş finished fourth on 60 points, Başakşehir fifth on 57.

The Gol Kralı was shared between Başakşehir's Eldor Shomurodov and Trabzonspor's Paul Onuachu on 22 goals apiece, ahead of Anderson Talisca (19) and Osimhen himself (15). Onuachu rounded off his season by scoring both goals in the Turkish Cup final, a 2-1 win over Konyaspor that gave Trabzonspor their tenth. Across the season's 306 matches 812 goals were scored, 2.65 per game, watched by an average crowd of 14,593. Down went Antalyaspor (32 points), Kayserispor (30, having conceded 62) and Fatih Karagümrük (30), promoted only the year before.

On 14 August Galatasaray set out after a fifth consecutive league title, something no Turkish club has ever managed: four is the record, and it belongs to them, twice over. Okan Buruk signed a new deal in June, and Victor Osimhen, valued at 75 million euros, remains the most expensive footballer in the competition. Oddly enough, the champions have so far run the quietest transfer window of the big four.

The chasers have spent. Fenerbahçe changed manager — İsmail Kartal since 18 June — and signed Mason Greenwood from Marseille for 39 million, plus Vedat Muriqi and Nathan Aké; they have not won the league since 2013/14, the longest drought among the big four, and last season they lost it despite being beaten only twice. Beşiktaş installed Vincenzo Italiano and brought in Orkun Kökçü from Benfica for 30 million, Leandro Trossard from Arsenal and goalkeeper Alexander Nübel. Trabzonspor keep Onuachu and arrive as cup holders.

And three new names come up. Erzurumspor won the 1. Lig with 81 points and return after five seasons away. Amed SFK, from Diyarbakır, went up for the first time in the club's history. Çorum FK did it by beating Esenler Erokspor 2-0 in the play-off final on 24 May in Konya, and they too are top-flight debutants. The opening round sends Çorum to the champions' ground; the winter break runs from 21 December to 15 January, and the season does not close until 23 May 2027.

The Süper Lig has been shrinking for five years: 21 clubs in 2020/21, then 20, 19, 20 again, 19 and 18 since 2025/26. This is not improvisation. On 16 April 2025 the federation approved cutting Turkish professional football from 139 clubs to 120. For 2026/27 the 18 stay, with three clubs relegated to the TFF 1. Lig once the 34 rounds are done. There is no play-off: the only time one was tried was 2011/12, with regular-season points halved, and Galatasaray won that experiment 48-47.

Turkey gets five European places as the tenth-ranked federation in the UEFA coefficient. The champions go straight into the Champions League phase and the runners-up begin in qualifying. The Turkish Cup grants another: which is why Trabzonspor, third in the table and cup winners, go into the Europa League and push Beşiktaş and Başakşehir towards the qualifiers. The 10+4 rule on foreign players stays.

And then there is what no league table shows. On 27 October 2025 the federation published its internal audit: of 571 professional referees, 371 held betting accounts and 152 had bet on football; one had placed 18,227 slips. The next day it stripped 149 officials of their licences. On 10 November it referred 1,024 players to its disciplinary board, and on 19 July 2026 seventeen club executives were detained. To date, no Süper Lig club has lost points, a title or its place in the division over the case.