Alâattin Baydar

Alâattin Baydar — Biography

Alaattin Baydar was a Turkish national footballer, born in Istanbul in 1901 and who died in the same city on 13 July 1990. The younger brother of Fenerbahçe founder Nasuhi Baydar, he took up football at the club in 1913 at his brother's encouragement and was promoted to the first team in 1916 at just fifteen. Playing as a right winger, he was regarded as one of the earliest dribbling specialists in Turkish football and became known by the nickname "Alâ".

Baydar wore the Fenerbahçe jersey for eighteen seasons between 1916 and 1934, scoring 362 goals in 324 official matches, including 24 goals in 39 matches against rivals Galatasaray. As a player he won the Istanbul League titles of 1920–21 and 1922–23, and later, as club president, he presided over the Turkish League championships of 1963–64 and 1964–65.

He was part of the first Turkey national team that played Romania on 26 October 1923, earning 16 caps and scoring once against Poland, and was included in the squads for the 1924 and 1928 Summer Olympics. Baydar came from an aristocratic family whose relatives included the pop singer Alpay.