ISTANBUL, AUG 31: The slurs shouted by the ultras of a football club in northwest Turkey at their Kurdish rivals is just one way that the decades-old feud opposing Turks and Kurds plays out in the sport.
While Amedspor is the most popular team among Turkey's Kurds, who make up about a fifth of the country's 85 million people, it is the most hated by the rest of the population.
"They are not a team, they are terrorists," said Efe Kaan Ozkaya, a Sakaryaspor fan, standing with friends outside the Istanbul stadium hosting a second-division football match between his club and Amedspor.
Police officers and armoured vehicles flooded the Istanbul neighbourhood welcoming the southeast Turkish club.
As the national anthem played, Sakaryaspor supporters made the salute of the Grey Wolves, a far-right group accused of having killed several Kurdish and left-wing activists.
But the game is a precious opportunity for the 200 Amedspor lovers, guarded by 100 police officers, who came to watch their idols -- a trip that is frequently banned by authorities over security concerns.
The club's home city of Diyarbakir, also known as Turkey's "Kurdish capital", remains scarred by intense fighting between the army and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in 2015-2016.
The conflict opposing the government and the PKK -- which is considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union -- has killed more than 40,000 people since 1984.
Many Kurds say they face significant discrimination in the country. Ankara denies the claims, insisting that it does not discriminate against Kurds as a minority but rather opposes the PKK.
The players sporting white jerseys with red and green stripes -- the colours of Kurdistan -- began kicking the ball, as fans chanted "Amed! Amed!", Diyarbakir's Kurdish name.
Support -- and hatred -- for the club exploded after 2015, when it changed its name to Amedspor.
Nine years later, "the existence of Amedspor, with its colours and its name, is a very strong and unprecedented form of resistance", said Daghan Irak, a sports
sociologist. —AFP
