Mecnur Çolak

Mecnur Çolak — Biography

Mecnur Çolak was a former forward who came out of Sarıyer in the early 1990s to play up front for Fenerbahçe and who, after leaving football, drew wide press coverage for his activity on the stock market. Because the Turkish media mostly wrote his name as Mecnun Çolak, he also stayed in public memory under that form.

Born in Razgrad, Bulgaria, and holding both Turkish and Bulgarian citizenship, Çolak moved to Turkey with his family and began professional football at 23 with Sarıyer, where three steady seasons caught the eye of the bigger clubs. He transferred to Fenerbahçe for 1993-94, scored 14 league goals in his first season and stood second on the team's scoring list behind Bülent Uygun. In his second season the coach gave him little playing time, and after two seasons he moved to Denizlispor for 1995-96. He then spent a season each at Adana Demirspor and Beykozspor in the second tier of the time, today's 1. Lig, and retired from active football in 1998.

After football he traded on the stock market, and his dealings made headlines in the economic and news press for years. He died in Bulgaria on 11 December 2021, aged 54, and his funeral was held in Istanbul, where he was buried at Büyükçekmece Cemetery.