Aziz Yıldırım

Aziz Yıldırım — Biography

Born on 2 November 1952 in Ergani, Diyarbakır, Aziz Yıldırım is a Turkish civil engineer, businessman and ship-owner educated at Gazi University. He owns the engineering firm Maktaş, founded in 1979, and the DEARSAN shipyard, founded in 1980, and has also chaired the Turkish Clubs Union.

Yıldırım was elected the 32nd chairman of Fenerbahçe S.K. in 1998 and led the club without interruption for twenty years. During his tenure he oversaw major infrastructure projects, including the modernization of Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium and the construction of the Ülker Sports Arena, the Can Bartu facilities and the Düzce Topuk Yaylası facilities, while helping the club professionalize across its many sports branches. Fenerbahçe's football team won six Süper Lig titles under his leadership, and the 94 trophies won during his presidency make him the most decorated chairman in the club's history. In 2011 he was detained as part of a match-fixing investigation and held for roughly eighteen months before he and the club were acquitted in October 2015. He lost the 2018 presidential election to Ali Koç.

After an eight-year absence from the role, Yıldırım ran again and was re-elected Fenerbahçe chairman at the club congress on 7 June 2026, receiving 17,245 votes — the highest total ever won by a presidential candidate in the club's history.