Contemporary Atan's reaction: He quit refereeing, so why is he in the VAR chair?

15.12.2025 22:45

Konyaspor's head coach Çağdaş Atan spoke after the match against Fenerbahçe. Criticizing the VAR referee of the match, Atan said, "It was a bad evening. I congratulate Fenerbahçe. But I will also say this: the first penalty we conceded was very easy. Such easy penalties should not be given. Fenerbahçe played well and won. There is no problem with that. But why are you taking the match from here and moving it? There is no need for that. Barış Sarper is in VAR. He has retired from refereeing. Why is he there?"

Konyaspor Head Coach Çağdaş Atan made striking statements after the 4-0 loss to Fenerbahçe.

'WE PLAYED LIKE A NIGHTMARE'

Evaluating the match, Çağdaş Atan said, "Yes... I mean... It's a bit hard to talk. If I have to speak, we conceded a goal from a penalty in the 27th minute. Until that minute, I think things were not bad. We hardly gave the opponent anything except for one position. After the penalty, we played like a nightmare until the 45th minute. The score already broke away during that time."

'YOU'RE TRYING TO PLAY WITHOUT GETTING INVOLVED'

Continuing his words, Çağdaş Atan stated, "You come to Istanbul, your opponent is Fenerbahçe, and you are trying to play without getting involved! To think that something like this could come out is a huge nonsense, a fantasy! We are going through a painful process. It wasn't a target match, but we wanted to take more positive things from today. Our target matches are from now on. We will play 3 out of 4 matches at home. I believe that once the missing players return, we will gain upward momentum; we need to."

"HE QUIT REFEREEING, WHY IS HE IN VAR?"

Criticizing the VAR referee of the match, the experienced coach said, "It was a bad evening for us. I congratulate Fenerbahçe, but we played the Rizespor match last week. The midfielder accidentally stepped on the opponent's foot; he could have given a penalty there. It doesn't get called for Anatolian teams. There is a huge difference in the balance of give and take for us. There shouldn't be such easy penalties. Fenerbahçe played well and won. There is no problem there. But you take the match and carry it from one side to the other! In VAR, there is Sarper Barış Saka, who had quit refereeing; why is he in VAR?" he stated.