EFDN welcomes Istanbul Başakşehir FK to the Network

İstanbul Başakşehir FK is a young Turkish football club, founded in 2014 and based in İstanbul. The Club has an innovative role in Turkish football by challenging the tradition starting with its first domestic league title in 2020 among its strong opponents in İstanbul in particular, while only 6 years old. İstanbul Başakşehir FK has also been a constant participant in all of the European competitions including the Champions League.

İstanbul Başakşehir strives to become a social, premium football brand in the world, delivering the best on and off the pitch. They are also very much focused on sustainability-related topics and have been a loyal participant in the #Morethanfootball campaigns over the past years.

The young Turkish club is joining EFDN to get support for the club’s CSR projects while being connected to a massive network that enables them to share best practices. The Turkish side will contribute by creating some success stories together with the EFDN and its network. By communicating via EFDN’s platform IBFK expects to gain an even more positive image and also to benefit from current EFDN research, reports ad on-site networking events on the relevant ESG & CSR topics.

The club has set up the following programmes:

Education: The Professional Football Management Certificate Programme is one of a kind education in Turkish football that a football club owns with the mission to educate the next generation of football leaders. What makes this programme unique is the classes are delivered by the club’s own human recourses, sub-branched to each individual’s expertise area such as commercial, communication, data, academy, etc.

The purpose of the programme is to find and educate the next generation of leaders in football and sports by also opening them to massive networking opportunities.

İstanbul Başakşehir FK now has 60 alumni from different places in the world alongside Türkiye, as the United States, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, etc.

Environmental Sustainability: İstanbul Başakşehir FK has been working on environmental sustainability for 3 years now and takes action through education, communication, participation, and collaboration by following 2 steps in general:

Create & raise awareness around the problem
Provide fans with a platform where they can ACT!

The club carries environmental messages aligned with the SDGs on its alternative kits every season and decides the design & material of the kit fit for it. İstanbul Başakşehir runs different campaigns to raise awareness for important topics on its shirts throughout each season.

Hubert Rovers, CEO of EFDN: “I’m pleased to welcome Istanbul Basaksehir to the Network. The club has been a loyal participant in the previous #Morethanfootball campaigns and showed already multiple times its commitment towards sustainability-related topics via various special actions. We are looking forward to supporting them in expanding their CSR projects and helping them to create more local and European-wide impact.”

Mustafa Eröğüt, Vice President of İstanbul Başakşehir FK: ‘ We’re happy to join EFDN’s great network and be able to learn more from the best practices, trends while we communicate our social work to a wider audience and become more impactful. As a very young Club, we have already shown our commitment to the topic of sustainability and this network will be a great upgrade while building our long-term strategy.