İlhan Cavcav

İlhan Cavcav — Biography

İlhan Cavcav (4 October 1935, Hamamönü, Ankara – 22 January 2017, Ankara) was a Turkish businessman and football administrator who served as president of Gençlerbirliği from 1978 until his death, making him the longest-serving chairman of a single professional club in Turkish football.

Born to a family of Albanian origin that had emigrated from Pristina, he grew up in Mamak and left school after middle school to work in his father's flour mill. He struck out on his own in 1960, building a flour factory that placed him among Ankara's leading industrialists. In his youth he played amateur football for local sides including Maskespor and PTT.

After a brief spell running Hacettepe, he joined Gençlerbirliği's board in 1977 and became its president a year later. Under him the club climbed from the lower divisions to the top flight, won the Turkish Cup twice, and gained modern training facilities in Beştepe. He became famous for hard-nosed transfer negotiations and for scouting young, often African, talent cheaply and selling it on at a profit, keeping the club debt-free. He died in Ankara in January 2017 after a brain haemorrhage; the club's training complex bears his name.