Uğur Demirok

Uğur Demirok — Biography

Uğur Demirok was born on July 8, 1988, in Istanbul to a family of Bosniak descent; Wikidata records his birthplace more specifically as the Eyüpsultan district. Having started out playing football in his neighborhood, he was picked for the Galatasaray youth academy, whose alumni include Arda Turan and Sabri Sarıoğlu, and made his first official appearance for the senior team on April 1, 2006, the season in which the club won the league.

He spent several seasons out on loan, at Gaziantepspor, İstanbulspor, Beylerbeyi and Kartalspor, before a permanent move to Akhisar Belediyespor in 2011, where he became one of the team's key defenders and scored several goals during the 2013-14 season. That form led Fatih Terim to call him up for the national team for a friendly against Sweden in March 2014, after Ömer Toprak was injured. He joined Trabzonspor in January 2015, where, according to the newspaper Milliyet in 2020, he went through the most productive stretch of his career; he later played for Adanaspor, reportedly leaving the club in January 2025.

In November 2022 Demirok was reported to have been detained in an intelligence-service operation targeting the Gülen movement (FETÖ), and in February 2023 he was sentenced to prison in connection with the case.