Amedspor Diyarbakır Süper Lig, Digi Mart USA News (Diyarbakır, Turkey): Amedspor, a club from the city of Diyarbakır in southeastern Turkey, has a strong Kurdish identity, a trait that has earned it both love and hatred. The newly promoted side has played surprisingly well and could take first place from record champions Galatasaray Istanbul.
According to the report by Samuel Acker, fans gathered outside the Amedspor stadium in Diyarbakır, a city with a large Kurdish population, after a 5-1 win over relegation contender Eyüpspor. The result confirmed that Amedspor will be the first chaser to face the leaders, Galatasaray Istanbul.
Fans from across southeastern Turkey have traveled to matches. Zeki Kalkan, 24, said, “Amedspor is our identity.
Amedspor is the identity of all Kurds.” Rubar Sabri Delidere, 27, said the team represents a people and has become a symbol through its colors, culture and geography.
Amedspor’s colors are green and red, which together with yellow form the Kurdish national colors. The club posts on social media in Turkish as well as Kurmanci and Zazaki, two Kurdish languages, and its name uses the historic city name “Amed” rather than the Turkish “Diyarbakır.”
The squad also includes non-Kurdish Turkish players and foreign players from Nigeria, Israel and Kosovo. Promoted in the spring for the first time to the Süper Lig, the club is unexpectedly second in the table.
It beat Trabzonspor, which features Mohamed Salah, 2-1 in Diyarbakır and defeated Beşiktaş 3-2.
Nigerian striker Gift Orban, on loan from TSG Hoffenheim, has scored nine goals and provided five assists in ten matches for Amedspor, after four goals in 13 games for Hoffenheim. Vendors outside the stadium sell masks bearing his face.
Midfielder Gökhan Gül, 28, was born in Castrop-Rauxel, trained at VfL Bochum and played for German youth national teams up to the U20 level. “I have to say, the support here is incredible,” Gül said, adding that fans fly in from Germany, Belgium and Switzerland to watch matches.
The club and its fans have also faced hostility because of their open Kurdish identity. During a away match at Kocaelispor in the second matchday, some Kocaeli fans waved yellow bags in the stands.
The reference recalls the 1990s, when fighting between the Turkish army and the PKK led to many suspected PKK fighters’ bodies being returned to families in yellow body bags. Kocaeli’s chief prosecutor’s office said five suspects were placed under house arrest.
Reha Ruhavioğlu, head of the Kurdish Studies Center in Diyarbakır, said many nationalist and racist Turkish fans still hate Amedspor but that conditions are better than in past years, when similar threats would have gone unpunished. From 2016 to 2023, Amed fans could attend almost no away matches because of bans by local security authorities, while away bans have been relatively rare in the past three years.
Ruhavioğlu linked this to the so-called “peace process” between the Turkish government and the PKK, which officially dissolved in 2025 but is still listed as a terrorist organization by the EU. “If these negotiations fail, pressure on Amedspor could rise again,” he said.
Fans are enjoying the success and dream of beating Galatasaray, though the leaders are in strong form with players including Victor Osimhen, Rafael Leão, Alexei Batrakov, Leroy Sané and Ilkay Gündoğan, having recently won 4-0 at Konya and beaten VfB Stuttgart 2-0 in the Champions League. Amedspor regular Samuel Ballet is suspended, making the task harder.
Amedspor spokesman Eser Sönmez said the team’s popularity is not only tied to Kurdish identity, noting that three Istanbul clubs, Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe and Beşiktaş, dominate Turkish football, so growing support for Amedspor can also be described as a revolt against that system. The fact that the big Bosphorus clubs are being challenged by a Kurdish-identity club from the southeast adds a notable element to the situation.
