As the volleyball game drew to a close, thousands of fans watching on giant screens in an Istanbul park stood and fell silent. The ball soars, a Turkish player puts it near the net, and his teammate spikes. His Italian opponents blocked the shot but the ball was knocked out of bounds, giving the Turks victory and causing the crowd to chant “Turkey! Turkey! Turkey!”
Friday’s nail-biter victory by Turkey’s national women’s volleyball team in Women’s European Volleyball Championship is the latest conquest by the nation’s most successful major sports team, a record that has become a rare source of national pride that holds appeal across the nation’s social divides.
While some ultraconservatives have attacked the women as an affront to Islamic values, their fans hail them as role models of women’s empowerment in a country where many women feel they have yet to achieve equality- equal in society. And the team’s victories bode well for Turks struggling with high inflation, political polarization and a slow recovery from February’s devastating earthquakes that killed more than 50,000 people.
Affectionately referred to as the “Sultans of the Net,” the team won the League of Volleyball Nations championship in July in Arlington, Texas, and was leading national women’s team in the world, according to the FIVB, the sport’s international governing body. On Sunday, they will face Serbia in the final match of the European championship in Brussels.
At home, the team’s games are televised live by the state broadcaster and its players exude star power. Legions of followers on social media celebrate their achievements, track their frequent hair color changes and speculate about their romantic entanglements.
Corporate sponsorships and state support flowed in. In 2021, when Turkey granted citizenship to Cuban-born player Melissa Vargas, she received his new Turkish ID card from none other than President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“They are warriors,” said Ceren Duyan, a biologist at a biotech company who watched Friday’s game at the park. “When we see women doing great things in sports or anywhere else, we see that we too can be powerful.”
The volleyballers’ rise is at the center of an international reckoning over how female athletes are treated compared to their male counterparts. Last month, the head of the Spanish soccer federation was suspended after giving a female player an unwanted kiss on the lips. In July, the BBC apologized after one of its reporters asked the captain of the Moroccan national women’s soccer team if any of its players are gay.
The Turkish team has largely avoided such controversies, although the players’ personal styles have linked them to some of Turkey’s deepest divisions.
While its people are predominantly Muslim, Turkey was founded in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, its first president, as a secular state. Much of Turkish politics revolves around struggles between those who value the country’s secular heritage and those who insist on expanding the role of Islam in public life. The last camp included Mr. Erdogan, Turkey’s dominant politician for two decades.
The players are clearly in the former camp.
They do not cover their hair or wear clothing that covers their bodies, as most devout Muslim women do. Instead, they appear in the standard uniform of shorts and tank top, and some sport tattoos. Ms. Vargas, the team’s leading scorer, recently appeared on the court with hair dyed electric blue or bleached blond, with blue lightning in the ear.
After a victory on Wednesday against Poland, one player, Zehra Gunes, told Turkish reporters that the team was promoting Ataturk’s vision for Turkey.
“As Turkish women, we strive to be role models for future generations by shedding light on the path shown by Ataturk,” she said.
Another star player, Ebrar Karakurt, received numerous hateful and homophobic messages after posting pictures of himself on social media in loving poses with other women, and an Islamist called him newspaper “a national disgrace.”
In 2021, when the team was competing in the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, a prominent preacher harshly criticized the team for not following his concept of how a Muslim woman should behave.
“Woman of Islam! You are not sultan of the courts; you are the sultan of faith, goodness, chastity and decency,” preacher Ihsan Senocak wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
A spokesperson for Turkey’s volleyball federation responded to the scandal, praising Ms. Karakurt for having “the spirit of a warrior to represent his country.”
“Everyone’s private life concerns only them,” the spokesperson said. “Everything else is hokum.”
Recently rebuked by Ms. Karakurt his critics in his own way.
Last week, an X user named Abdulhamid responded to one of his posts, saying, “As a Muslim Turkish nation, we continue to put up with you.”
After Friday’s victory, Ms. Karakurt a picture of himself holding a sign which read, “Cut the crap, Abdulhamid.”
The team’s successes resonate because Turkey has long seen sports as a way to assert itself around the world.
“It is always the motive of Turkish sports to be successful in international encounters to prove that we are legitimate – as strong, as successful, equal to our peers in the West,” said Many Iraqis, a senior lecturer in media communication at the University of Huddersfield in Britain. “It’s a very important part of our society’s thinking in terms of sports.”
Mr. Erdogan and his government may not appreciate everything about the team’s public profile, Mr. Irak said, but the president likely appreciates their inspirational value.
“Obviously, Erdogan is more interested in the national pride generated by this group than in lifestyle questions,” Mr. Irak said.
Mr. Erdogan, an avid soccer player in his youth, did not attend any of the team’s games. But he did call Eda Erdemthe team’s captain, after its first game at the Tokyo Olympics to say he was watching.
“You made us sentimental, you made us cry,” Mr. Erdogan said, passing his congratulations “to all the girls.”
After the team won a tournament this summer, an opposition lawmaker, Gulcan Kis, filed an inquiry in Parliament asking why Mr. Erdogan in any game and suggested that this is to avoid angering the conservatives.
“Is the targeting of the women’s national volleyball team by religious scholars the reason for your absence from the last game?” Ms. Kis asked.
But the feuds haven’t damaged the popularity of women’s volleyball, or the vast infrastructure that supports it. The national women’s league is highly competitive and rich in sponsorships. And the Ministry of Education runs “Sultans of Tomorrow” program to introduce the game to girls in provincial cities.
The success of the national team attracted a new generation of girls to the game, said Neslihan Demir, who retired from the team in 2017.
“All the little girls in Turkey want to play volleyball now because they watch their older sisters as role models,” she said.
The widespread social acceptance of gamers has encouraged parents to let their daughters play as well, he said.
Ms. remembered Demir met a family who asked him if their 9-year-old daughter could become a Sultan of the Net.
“Begin at once,” he told them.
Safak Timur contributed reporting.
