Day 1 of The Ball’s visit to Turkey and it was time to meet none other than Muammer Keskin the Mayor of Sisli/Istanbul (CHP, the main opposition party). For Benni, it was already the second visit to the mayor’s office. He visited the Mayor’s predecessor on the The Ball’s 2018 trip and showed his successor some pictures of The Ball’s visit to Turkey in 2018 including a short scene from the Spirit of The Ball Netflix documentary. After a round of headers in and outside the building (all the security guards wanted to sign The Ball as well), we were taken back to the office of our partner the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Besiktas. Antonia and Pinar, the FES team, took such good care of us and planned the entire stay for us. Thanks so much for this! At their office, we also met some of their colleagues who also wanted to head and sign The Ball and had some time to prepare our workshop for the next two days. Next on the list was a meeting with our partner organization Yuvam Dünya – for the first time offline.
Next on the agenda, in Kurtulus, we met Konstantin Belalidis, the President of Kurtulus Sports Club, a Greek sports club which was founded in 1896 and is one of the oldest existing sports clubs in Istanbul. Here, The Ball demonstrated its inclusivity: It and the Spirit team joined a Basketball youth team during their training session, tried to play some FairPlay Basketball, and were shown around the club house after another round of headers and signatures.
Across the street, several people were preparing the Mahalla Festival which takes place at a former Greek primary school and includes workshops and presentations dealing with waste, resources and environment, cultural heritage and culture of remembrance, and urban transformations.
Our partner from England, Football for Future’s founder Elliot, who had helped us develop the Football Under the Climate Microscope Resource, joined us as well. The restaurant that Pinar and Antonia chose belongs to a former Turkish footballer, Turgut Vidinli. He heard from his friend Dino from Kurtulus Sports Club about the project and welcomed us at his restaurant. It goes without saying that The Ball was warmly welcomed and headed and signed by Turgut, his son and a couple of more people who happened to walk by. He also showed us his personal museum of pictures with celebrities who ate at his restaurant, mostly footballers including Mario Gomez and Christoph Daum.