Turkey FM summons Greek envoy to protest ill-treatment of football team

The Turkish Foreign Ministry yesterday summoned Greek Ambassador in Ankara, Michael-Christos Diamessis, to “firmly” protest his country’s ill- treatment of Turkey’s football club Galatasaray at Athens airport on Monday, Anadolu reported.

The agency quoted Turkish diplomatic sources as saying that the Foreign Ministry handed a protest note to the Greek ambassador, describing the ill- treatment meted out to Turkish football team as “illegal, discriminatory, and far from friendly” and called on the Greek authorities to avoid taking similar actions in the future.

On Monday, the Galatasaray team returned from Greece, after authorities there refused the PCR test results of some of the players and insisted on testing them again, despite the existence of a mutual recognition protocol on coronavirus PCR tests between the two countries.

The Galatasaray Football Club said in a statement that, after waiting for about two hours at the airport, the team decided to return to Istanbul.

READ: Turkey DM calls on Greece to be reasonable, ‘logical and fair’