Turkey's Football Federation (TFF) has decided to drop the word "arena" from the names of sport's venues, replacing it with "Stadyum," the Turkish word for Stadium. On the TFF's official website, Galatasaray changed its stadium name from "Türk Telekom Arena" to "Türk Telekom Stadyumu," while Beşiktaş renamed "Vodafone Arena" as "Vodafone Stadyumu."
Similarly, all the stadium's containing the word "arena" have been renamed. Istanbul giants Galatasaray were the first team to drop the word "Arena" from the name of their stadium, after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called to remove the word "arena" from the names of stadiums in his latest bid to protect the Turkish language. The decision to rename the "Türk Telekom Arena" located in Istanbul's European side was taken at the club's board meeting on May 27.
Alper Narman, a Galatasaray board member, said, "The stadium will be renamed as the Ali Sami Yen Sports Complex Türk Telekom Stadium as of today."
Earlier on Friday, President Erdoğan said that he had instructed the sports minister to order the removal of the word "arena" from the names of all sport's venues across Turkey.
"I am against using 'arena.' You know what they do in arenas, don't you? People were dismembered there. I have given the instruction to the (sport's) minister and we will remove the name 'arena' from stadiums. There is no such word in our language," Erdoğan said, urging the audience to look up the "meaning and interpretation" of arena.
He was referring to ancient Roman games in which gladiators and wild animals entertained spectators in large arenas, including at the Colosseum in Rome. Many condemned criminals would face wild animals in public executions in such arenas.
Earlier this week Erdoğan referred to historic "European arenas" as he said past events meant using the term was "neither polite nor elegant." He then stressed the need for Turkey to advance its own language.
