The Story of the Football Club that signed 22 players in 2 hours
By Jim James
Rewind your minds back, if you will, to January 2019. 1300 days ago now, before the Barca financial crisis was a thing, Erling Haaland was essentially what Benjamin Sesko is now, and Ajax had *that* star studded side which included Frenkie de Jong, Mattigs de Ligt, Hakim Ziyech, Dusan Tadic, Noussair Mazraoui, Andre Onana, David Neres, Nicolas Tagliafico, and a 17-year old Ryan Gravenberch, who were about to go on a legendary run. But Ajax is not who we’re talking about today. No, we’re going to the whole other side of the continent to Turkey. But we’re still not talking about Besiktas, Fenerbahce, Galatasaray, or any club in the Turkish first tier. Or Second Tier. Or Third Tier.
Entegre Solar Elazığspor Kulübü, known simply as Elazigspor, nicknamed Gakgoslar, is a 4th-division Turkish side that made national headlines in late January 2019 for the oddest reason. They signed 22 players in the span of 2 hours. “But Jim”, I hear you ask, “what could possibly have happened so that a club signed 22 players in the space of 120 minutes?” Well, I’m glad you asked. But first, let me give you a brief history of Elazigspor up to 2019.
Elazigspor was founded on November 30, 1966 when 3 lower division sides, Merkez Genclik, Guvenspor, and Harputspor combined. Not much is known about them, but they got promoted to the 1st division for the first time in 2001, where they stayed for 3 seasons then got relegated. A back-to-back promotion in 2010 and 2011 saw them back in the 1st division where it was shown they weren’t ready as they were relegated 2 years later. Although currently in the 4th division, the Elazig-based side were in the 2nd division at the time of this story.
Due to an unknown reason and an unknown period of time, they had a transfer ban, which was lifted on January 30 2019, and they proceeded to go on a mad spree of signings, averaging a signing roughly every 5 and a half minutes. Here is a list of signings:
Ahmet Solakel
Christian Bakemenga
Emir Gokce
Murat Ceylan
Kadir Bekmezci
Rüştü Hanlı
Serdar Özbayraktar
Tufan Kelleci
Yiğitcan Erdoğan
Diallo Guidileye
Georgiadis
Abdulkadir Kayalı
Ahmet Sabri Fener
Cengizhan Akgün
Emrah Gür
Muhammed İldiz
Serge Akakpo
Boubacar Traore
Dersim Kaynak
Gökhan Akkan
Mustafa Eskihellac
Nuh Kirilankicoglu
There is a reason that the club could complete so many signings, though, being that they didn’t spend a cent on transfer fees. They were just free agents and loans, allowing for very easy and speedy negotiations.
However, our story comes to a sad end, as the signings didn’t work out, and they got relegated to the third division that season, and got relegated again 2 years later to the 4th division, which is where they remain today. I’m Jim James, until next time.