A section of Turkey’s soccer fans decided not to honor the scheduled minute of silence in honor of the Paris attacks before the country’s friendly match against Greece in Instanbul on Tuesday night.
The game ended in a lack-luster 0-0 tie, but the crowd’s behavior garnered headlines before the match even started when large groups of the crowd inside the Basaksehir Fatih Terim Stadium refused to honor the 129 victims that were killed by terrorists attacks in Paris on Friday.
The crowd can clearly be heard shouting and whistling in a video that was circulated on Twitter. Some reports indicated that Turkey’s fans were booing and even shouting “Allahu Akbar.”
Turkey manager Fatih Terim lamented the incident after the game saying, “Our fans should have behaved during the national anthems and during the one minute silence,” the Daily Mail reported.
“Greece is our neighbor. Today is world neighbors day, but our fans didn’t behave like neighbors in this match,” he added.
Both Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Greek Prime Minster Alexis Tsipras attended the game.
It was the first time the two teams had met for eight years and the Turkish Football Federation had announced a string of additional security measures before the match at the stadium, which was a 17,000 sell-out.
• Kellan Howell can be reached at khowell@washingtontimes.com.
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