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The referee at the centre of the storm after the Galatasaray–Fenerbahce derby, Yasin Kol, has been left off duty this week, as his controversial performance and a Prada jacket worth about ₺101,000 (over $2,000) continue to trigger debate across Türkiye’s football scene.
Yasin Kol has become one of the most talked-about figures in Türkiye after his handling of the high-profile derby between Istanbul rivals Galatasaray and Fenerbahce came under intense scrutiny. Galatasaray president Dursun Ozbek visited Turkish Football Federation president Ibrahim Haciosmanoglu to raise complaints about Kol’s management of the match, which has kept the spotlight firmly on the referee.
As the controversy grew, many fans began to ask who Kol is and how he rose so quickly. Images captured after the match showed him leaving the stadium in a black Prada jacket said to be worth ₺101,000, and this expensive designer choice helped fuel public criticism. Some Galatasaray supporters reacted by saying that he had once worked as a security guard and was now able to wear Prada, and these comments kept his personal story in the headlines.
According to Turkish media, Kol, now 37, was born in Surmene in the Black Sea province of Trabzon and completed his education at Surmene High School. While working as a security guard, he began refereeing as a side job, starting out in the lower leagues, including the Regional Amateur League.
His career gained momentum after Haciosmanoglu, who is also from Trabzon, became TFF president. Kol rapidly climbed the refereeing ladder and was appointed to Türkiye’s highest-rated matches. This season he has been assigned to all of Galatasaray’s derby fixtures, and in each of those games the team dropped points, which led to further criticism and drew attention to the fact that he is seen as one of the federation president’s most trusted referees.
Kol first appeared in the Turkish Super Lig – the country’s top-tier professional league – as a fourth official on March, 3 2019. From the 2020–2021 season onwards he began to take charge of Super Lig games as the main referee.
However, his performances were later judged inadequate. In 2024, the Turkish Football Federation deemed him “insufficient” and moved him down to a lower refereeing category. After spending time there, he returned to the top level and once again started to officiate Super Lig matches. Since then, his decisions have frequently been discussed, and his controversial calls have kept him in the spotlight. In the most recent derby, criticism focused on the period between the 55th and 95th minutes, when he was accused of failing to award fouls in favour of Galatasaray.
Kol’s performance in the derby has been dissected by several former referees and television analysts, who largely agreed that he did not reach the standard expected for such a high-pressure match, even if they did not see a clear, result-changing error.
Former referee Deniz Coban described the game as a “chaos football” derby and said Kol tried to keep control but fell short in his overall standard. He argued that the referee did not make mistakes in truly critical decisions, yet stayed “below par” in his foul and yellow-card assessments, adding that “from the 50th to the 90th minute he missed very clear fouls and cards.”
Bulent Yildirim stated that Kol’s use of the whistle did not inspire confidence and that he failed to rise above an average performance, saying that observers could not see good refereeing displayed. Bahattin Duran similarly claimed that Kol never found a consistent approach to fouls, so players could not rely on his line of judgement, and he concluded that the referee did not influence the scoreline but still did not manage to exceed a modest level.
Former referee and commentator Ahmet Cakar said he was not impressed by Kol’s second-half performance, arguing that the official made “too many mistakes” in foul and yellow-card decisions. He claimed that “two of the yellow cards he gave were wrong,” adding that there were “at least three more yellow cards” that Kol should have shown.
Another experienced former referee, Firat Aydinus, underlined that this was Kol’s eighth league game of the season and the fourth derby of his career. He said Kol slowed the tempo of the first half with frequent whistles, especially for minor contacts, which prevented already cautious teams from increasing the pace. Aydinus noted that the ball was in play for only about 50 of the 107 minutes, and he believed the referee shared responsibility for that, suggesting that this low effective playing time “worked in his favour.” He pointed out that Kol’s choices on when to show or withhold yellow cards drew attention as well, and he concluded that the referee was technically and disciplinarily inadequate. At the same time, he stressed that, in a derby without major, score-changing incidents, it remains open to debate how far these errors will be pushed to the forefront.
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