No Turkish Delight At Free-Kicking Game

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22971, 14 June 1949, Page 4

No Turkish Delight At Free-Kicking Game

ATHENS, May 25.

A dispute which has set _ Mediterranean triends at each other's throats over a rowdy football match, resulted in a diplomatic protest to the Greek Foreign Minister today. The Turkish Ambassador called on M. Constantin Tsaldans to talk over angry reports from Ankara that the Turkish football team which lost to Italy in the , final of the Mediterranean “Friendship Football Cup" was attacked by Athens spectators and police after the game. Later M. Stulianos Gonatas, Greek National Liberal leader, poured oil on the boiling waters by “regretting the misunderstanding'' and demanding a calm examination of the facts. He recalled that Turkish teams had often been warmly applauded in Greece. A Greek Football Association statement of the match regretted the “false impression” caused by Turkish press reports. The only “sad episode," it said, was when a gioup of Turkish footballers entered the office of the Greek referee “with the visible intention of maltreating him.” Another Turkish footballer attacked an Italian player in the dressing-room, kicked him in the stom'ach and threw him senseless to the ground, the statement said.

Greek Government quarters described the affair as "quite insignificant” but accused the Turkish team of breaking furniture in hotel bedrooms before returning home. Greek newspapers today deplored the Turkish jeports and urged that the cordial friendship between Turkey and Greece should not be “shaken by a few kicks."