Engin Verel

Engin Verel — Biography

Ramiz Engin Verel is a former international footballer who carried the rival colours of Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe and also played in Germany, Belgium and France. He is said to be the first Turkish footballer to leave Turkey and win a league title with a European club. After playing he turned to sports writing and punditry and kept making himself heard in the press with his views on Fenerbahçe.

He started out at his uncle's team Davutpaşa and joined Galatasaray in 1973 at 17. He transferred to Fenerbahçe in 1975 and won two league titles there before 1979. Then came four years in Europe, in shirts of Hertha BSC in Germany, RSC Anderlecht in Belgium and Lille OSC in France. He won the title with Anderlecht; in 1981-82 at Lille he was named the league's best foreign player, and his overhead-kick goal at Paris Saint-Germain's Parc des Princes was voted the best goal in France of the past 25 years. He returned to Fenerbahçe in 1983 and ended his playing days in the second half of the 1980s, with a farewell match against Rizespor.

He won 26 caps for Turkey. In June 2021 he withdrew from the race for the Fenerbahçe presidency, and in later years he served as head of TFV. His views on Fenerbahçe's performances regularly appear in the sports press.