Halil İbrahim Dinçdağ’s career as a professional referee was terminated when his homosexuality was exposed by a compulsory military service health report in 2009. His legal battle against the Turkish Football Federation resulted in a victory.
The statement that football is a male-dominated game everywhere in the world would not come as a surprise to anyone. Nevertheless, to the extent that it has become very widespread and developed into an industry, this popular game presents a very promising platform for the dissemination of principles against hate speech and discrimination–as it was the case with many concrete democratic victories like women’s football and antiracist campaigns. Although the influence of similar positive discourses gained significant visibility in the most prominent showcases such as the Champions’ League and the World Cup, it is hard to argue that the same atmosphere is present in thousands of different types of leagues all over the world. But it is also not very easy to find a tendency to search for the association between gayness and the game performance within this diversity, or between gayness and the joy one obtains from the game. It is also difficult to openly exclude a football player or a referee, whose gayness has been exposed.
There is also the fact that football is the mirror of its society. Turkey’s Super League and other leagues present an excellent crash course on the subject. Perhaps, due to certain characteristics unique to our country, latent homophobia searching for an association between sexual orientation and sports enjoyment appeared in Turkey this time, wearing a suit and tie. The Trabzon province referee Halil İbrahim Dinçdağ was a target of actual discrimination in 2009 after football bureaucrats discovered the “disability report” issued by the army, which considers homosexuality an “illness” that exempts gay individuals from compulsory military service. He was then banned from the games, excluded from the profession, denied access to professional referee examinations, and his identity was exposed in a conservative city like Trabzon.
Dinçdağ remembers that process: “I was conscripted in 2008, I showed up and got a report. When I came back, the Trabzon Provincial Referee Board continued to assign me to duty for a month. They had not yet seen the official letter that said ‘he is exempt from military service between such and such dates.’ After finding out about the letter, they stopped assigning me to games. I stated several times that my problem was not a health problem. Doctors they consulted said ‘he does not have any health limitations regarding his referee duties.’ Nevertheless, they banned me from referee duty. The Central Referee Board ruled ‘he cannot serve as a referee according to that article,’ without carrying out any investigation; hence my referee career was terminated. Everything started this way.”
In this way, the football referee institutions, namely the institutions that ensure rights and justice in football games, had actually appropriated the ostracizing, discriminatory and militarist language and assumptions into the sports arena. Thus, in the context of in a game that is followed by millions and where compliments like “a manly man” are common, an elitist bureaucrat elite was able to act on behalf of the public and discriminate and perpetrate a hate crime. Halil İbrahim Dinçdağ did not give up and started a legal battle. His historic lawsuit against the Turkey Football Federation ended in December after 19 trials.
“I was right and this was legally recognized”
The outcome of Halil İbrahim Dinçdağ’s legal action is partially a revolution for Turkey’s legal system, which completely is in shambles in terms of social credibility. Although the court ruled against the football federation and sentenced it to pay indemnity, Dinçdağ thinks there are shortcomings in the court decision.
“We filed the lawsuit in 2010, with the allegations of violations of privacy and sexual discrimination. It lasted around six years and came to a conclusion on December 29, 2015. In a detailed ruling, the court accepts that I was unable to receive any assignments, but it does not mention sexual discrimination and violation of privacy. In other words, the ruling says these did not happen. We appealed the ruling; we want this to be recognized as discrimination. I could not work during this period whatsoever; in our objection we presented all of our arguments. Now we are waiting for the decision of the Supreme Court of Appeals. We will take this case all the way up to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary. It was still very important to win the court case at this point though. I was right, and this was legally recognized. Unfortunately, I was fired from my job and unable to find a new one during this period. There are people on social media writing that ‘it’s his fault, if he wanted to he could find a job for 1500 liras a month.’ Well, I applied for over 150 jobs, including dishwashing. I even slept outside in parks for three days while all this was going on. I was diagnosed with cancer during this period and defeated it, but I lost my mother to cancer. All sorts of damages, material and moral, are present; these ridiculous indemnity sums cannot count as compensation. At least the ruling could have been written properly, but it was not.”
The indemnity had been calculated with reference to the average sum that could be made by a referee of his classification in Trabzon in six years. It is outrageous of course that the heavy damage inflicted by social exclusion experienced at the age of 33 after 13 years of career as a referee was not included in this calculation. Nevertheless, the positive sides of the ruling are great in terms of individual and social consequences:
“Despite the fact that it says ‘there is no sexual discrimination,’ I think this decision is revolutionary for football. This ruling tore down the walls of the male dominant perspective in football. Moreover, I find it important that the fields where extreme homophobia persists are examined very carefully. Industrial football is the most popular sports branch; is it really possible that there are no homosexuals among the performers and audience of this sport? Football field is a stage; they wear the mask of heterosexuality while on stage, but they go back to their true identity behind the stage. No one should be forced to express that they are homosexuals, but the ones that do should not be excluded either. I worked in this profession for 14 years as a homosexual. I said to the officers in the federation then: ‘if this is the case, why don’t you also cancel the twelve hundred games I refereed in the last 14 years?’ Naturally they did not reply, they looked away and closed their ears. The more they ignored it, the more I rubbed it in their noses. I believe this case will be a precedent for many issues. If an employer thinks about firing his employee through sexual or any other kinds of discrimination, now he will think twice.”
Shock and activist therapy
The Football Federation’s decision to terminate Halil İbrahim Dinçdağ’s career as a professional referee was predicated on the grounds that he was exempted from military service because of a health problem. Dinçdağ became the immediate target of interview requests and came under intense scrutiny from the press after his objection petition to the Arbitration Committee against the decision of the Federation, which was leaked to the sports media. Of course, this type of recognition was not only a problem in the football world, but it also created a risk within his immediate social circle. Having grown up in a religious environment in Trabzon, Dinçdağ lived in religious student dormitories. His brother and sister were even graduates of divinity school. But contrary to expectations, his family and close circle was supportive of him. Even his father, with whom he felt difficulty talking about the subject for a long time, insisted that he should fight for his rights and stood behind him. According to Dinçdağ, this exceptional behavior–exceptional, considering the dominant concern for honor and its reinforcement with violence in Turkey–was in line with the religious teachings he grew up and continue living with: “It is very important what we understand as conservatism and religiosity. I always say: it is not the religious people who harm this country, but narrow-minded bigots. We are living in a system where a clique of people have come together to abuse religion for self-interest and impose it on other people.”
At the peak of his struggle against the Federation, Halil İbrahim Dinçdağ lost his job at the radio, was excluded from refereeing profession, and moved out of his home city, but he never gave up. He is like Don Quixote in this sense, still a rare example for Turkey, especially for sexual discrimination cases. He demonstrates the power of struggle even though he was a single individual fighting alone. Still, Dinçdağ was quick to gather significant social support during this process:
“I found myself doing activism suddenly. Naturally, it was the first time I experienced something like this. At the beginning, I really wasn’t able to understand what kind of a situation I was in—nobody could. I was the only example of someone to experience something like this who had an ongoing referee career. After a while, I realized that I was already an activist just by living my normal life. I used to fight for my referee friends and colleagues who experienced injustice all the time. I always stood against injustice; but with this incidenct, I matured everyday. I became tough and I learned a lot. As a person who came out with a lot of visibility, I gained a level of experience where I could analyze and advise people about paths to follow during the process of an average coming out. A lot of people reach me through social media, especially families and mothers. They ask how they should approach their children. There are people who tell me not to quit the case and keep on fighting. This gives me power.”
Gazoz League, Efendi League and refereeing for fun
After the ruling, Dinçdağ will appeal to Central Referee Board for reinstatement of his rights as a referee. After all that has happened, reinstating Dinçdağ to his professional referee position despite the age limit would be a great reward and lesson for the macho football culture in Turkey. Furthermore, he has managed to stay in shape during this period:
“Of course, I would like to work as a referee again, but I am not sure my health would let me do so. Actually, I am pretty satisfied in the Gazoz League and Efendi Leagues. I am not talking about an ego satisfaction. I have fun, I exercise, I meet great people. Previously, in my 14-year referee career I had not made as many friends as I have made recently because of these incidents and leagues.”
The Gazoz (Sparkling Water) and Efendi (Gentlemen’s) Leagues are two football organizations with game schedules planned at the beginning of each season, with weekly score tables and weekly games played in the Beylerbeyi Stadium. As with professional teams, each team is composed of 11 players, yet they are chosen among friends and fellows; the winner gets three points, and offsides are carefully observed. Even though it is occasionally possible to see Super League quality players in the teams, players with professional licenses are not allowed. Apart from that, things like ambition, greed, cursing, intimidation using unnecessary rough play, and belittling the opponent, i.e., everything associated with larger football industry is rejected. Games are played for a gazoz or a symbolic trophy; the real winner, they hope, is friendship. Halil İbrahim Dinçdağ has been serving as a referee for both of these sister organizations since the time of their establishment, which means that he has to be ready at the center and blow his whistle three games a day, five days a week.
“The Referee community became such an environment that…”
As an experienced referee, he has few words to say about referee profession in Turkey as well. Especially this year, as it has been the case in recent years, when referees and referee mistakes are the hottest topic on the agenda of club presidents and newspaper columns:
“The referee community in Turkey has developed in such a way that it has become impossible to object to the executives, and executives are also pretty stubborn. For instance, before Bülent Yavuz became the president of the Central Referee Board all the referees had mustaches; after he arrived all mustaches were shaved off. They became a community that stayed silent when a colleague had trouble. Even if they resist inside, they are afraid of not getting any assignments. A provincial referee must respect a referee with a higher classification and do whatever he says; there is a strict hierarchy.”
Furthermore, this year the referee community is experiencing some interesting developments. While the resignation mechanism in standard democracies is completely ignored after corruption scandals or mine disasters, a referee could resign after a faulty decision he made in a game:
“Deniz Çoban made a bad decision. His conscience could not handle this, and he resigned. But referees who did much worse than he did are still serving in this country. Deniz Çoban presented an honorable attitude, but as I always say: don’t run away; he should have stayed there and fought. Running away is the easiest; you run away and you end up leaving the field for them. If they prevent you from refereeing, you become an observer and insist on staying in. But, unfortunately it has become a community based on hate and resentment, based on a one of us/one of them division. In the last 10-15 years it has turned into a dynasty that goes from father to son.”
“A Referee is a psychiatrist and a social scientist”
We have seen a football player who grabbed the red card from the referee’s hand and pointed towards him, who after making grave mistakes in the first derby match he ever conducted became a target of great public reaction. Rarely seen on the football field, this incident was covered widely by the international press and even printed on t-shirts prepared by Trabzon Football Club:
“I think, what player did was disrespectful, but it is a result of a natural outburst. Look all the way back in the history: is there any other referee who received a FIFA certification only after refereeing 16 games in the Super League? Only Deniz Ateş Bitnel. He had never refereed a derby game at that point. You think, ok, he is young, he is talented; then he starts to think of himself as such a hotshot. Unfortunately, he refereed a terrible game in the Galatasaray-Trabzon match. He lost control and could not get it together. I felt sorry for him actually. But this is not the case just for the Super League. You cannot imagine how significantly the mistakes impact teams and individuals in our lesser visible leagues. In fact, a referee is a psychiatrist, a social scientist. In the Galatasaray-Trabzonspor game, the ball hit Özer’s face, but referee called a hand ball. He could be mistaken. He could have said to Özer, ‘Sorry, I could have seen it wrongly’ and Özer would say ‘OK, sir’ and walk away. But if you insist on aggressive hand gestures, shout and use angry expressions, you provoke the player. It is not only Deniz Ateş Bitnel’s attitude; many referees do the same. The referee should understand the player’s psychology. Quite the opposite, they mean to say ‘I am here, do what I say.’ But they learn this from their mentors. If the athlete offends you, you have your cards, and you should use them and include it in your report. But you should not revise your report later. Reports are altered too often in Turkey. If there weren’t so much outrage at that game, the points Deniz Ateş Bitnel would get would be at least 8. In the games in Europe, our referees perform their duties, including the line referee duty, perfectly, but who cares! In that case, they either don’t care about the league here, or they referee the game here in a certain way. Is a person born referee? The referee community is a community in which one can sell out his friends in order to be able to go to a few more games.”
I was born again at the age of 33
Halil İbrahim Dinçdağ will continue his legal struggle as long as what he lived through is identified and all his rights are fully reinstituted. Today, he is a living symbol that shows the importance of not giving up or staying silent. If one makes it a point to take up a struggle, even individually, this will eventually turn into a good social deed. That is why Dinçdağ is quite content and walking tall after being discriminated against in a conservative society:
“Think about it: I had to make a break with the first 33 years of my life just because of a discrimination committed by the football federation. I was born again at the age of 33; I started to crawl and walk. Now I am running. Most likely I will be sprinting soon (he laughs).”