Fethi Heper

Fethi Heper — Biography

Fethi Heper (3 February 1944, Eskişehir – 13 February 2025, Odunpazarı) was a forward who became Eskişehirspor's all-time leading league scorer and one of the rare Turkish athletes to pursue a full academic career after football.

The youngest of five children in an athletic family, Heper owed his first encounter with the sport to a ball his brother Beytullah Heper — a cartoonist seventeen years his senior — received as a graduation gift from primary school in 1955. Known as 'Çengel' (Hook) for the way he controlled high balls on his chest, he was one of the players celebrated in Eskişehirspor fans' 1970s chant 'Fethi-Nihat-Ender, send it to the net,' alongside teammates Nihat Atacan and Ender Konca, and was a maternal relative of striker Metin Oktay.

After retiring, Heper turned to academia, earning the titles of associate professor and later full professor of finance — the only Turkish footballer to rise from player to university professor — and from 2012 also served on the board of the Turkish Football Federation. He died in 2025 in his home city, and his name was later given to Eskişehirspor's stadium and to a sports middle school opened in Eskişehir in 2026.