BERLIN — UEFA suspended Turkish player Merih Demiral for two matches on Friday for committing a controversial hand gesture at the European Championships, an incident that led to a diplomatic dispute between Turkey and host country Germany.
Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz denounced the decision as unacceptable and called for it to be “corrected”.
“The emotion and beauty of football should not be overshadowed by political decisions,” said Yilmaz.
The suspension rules Demiral out of his team’s quarter-final against the Netherlands on Saturday and the semi-final should Turkey advance.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to attend Saturday’s game. He abandoned plans to attend a meeting in Azerbaijan and decided to attend the match to show his support.
Speaking to a group of journalists before the announcement of UEFA’s decision, Erdogan defended Demiral, saying the 26-year-old defender only expressed his “enthusiasm” after scoring his second goal in Tuesday’s game. 2-1 victory over Austria.
UEFA said it banned Demiral “for failing to comply with the general principles of conduct, for violating the basic rules of decent conduct, for using sporting events for demonstrations of a non-sporting nature and for discrediting the sport of football”.
The Turkish football association had no immediate reaction to the ban, although Turkish media reports said the association would appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Omer Celik, spokesman for Erdogan’s ruling party, criticized the UEFA ban as an “extremely wrong decision”. He suggested that the governing body bowed to the influence of “certain pressure groups”.
“UEFA’s decision has cast a shadow of political influence over football,” Celik wrote on social media platform X.
Demiral’s goals took Turkey to the quarter-finals. After scoring the second goal, he made a sign with each hand that is used by Turkish nationalists and those associated with the Turkish ultranationalist organization Ulku Ocaklari, better known as the Gray Wolves.
Demiral later defended the gesture, saying it was an innocent expression of national pride and that he hoped to have “more opportunities to make the same gesture again.”
He was condemned by German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser and other German politicians, which led to a harsh rebuke from Turkish authorities and the recall of the German ambassador.
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry classified UEFA’s investigation as a politically motivated reaction “to the use of a historical and cultural symbol” and said statements by German authorities about Demiral’s gesture “contain xenophobia”.
UEFA launched its investigation into Demiral’s gesture on Wednesday. The Turkish camp had until Friday to present its case.
Demiral was previously one of Türkiye’s 16 players reprimanded in 2019, for giving military-style salutes at games, at a time when the country was conducting a military offensive in Syria.
The Gray Wolves group was founded as the youth wing of Turkey’s far-right Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, which is currently in an alliance with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party.
In the decades following its founding in the 1960s, the group was accused of involvement in politically motivated violence, particularly against left-wing groups.
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