Hakan Sukur was once a footballing icon in Turkey: club legend for Galatasaray, UEFA Cup winner, scorer of the fastest ever international goal, admired across Turkey. However, his path after retirement from football led him into politics, and would end up seeing him exiled from his home country in 2016.
When he retired from football in 2008, Hakan Sukur closed the page on a chapter of his life that he could only have dreamed of. The Turkish striker, who began his senior career in 1987, had achieved pretty much everything a striker could achieve by the time he played his last game for Galatasaray, helping them secure a record-equalling seventeenth Süper Lig title in his final season.
On a club level he won fourteen major titles with Galatasaray, where he spent most of his career, including a UEFA Cup and eight league titles. On an individual level he was one of the most prolific strikers of his time, scoring 332 goals in his club career and being awarded the Gol Krali (the Turkish version of the Golden Boot) three times.
He also shone on the international stage, representing Turkey 112 times, and becoming the nation's top goalscorer with 52 goals. His contribution to his country made him popular even amongst rival fans from Fenerbache and Besiktas, a rare achievement in a country where football is the subject of intense fanaticism, and derbies can lead to stone throwing, pyrotechnics, street riots and casualties.
The jewel in the crown of his international career came when he broke the record for the fastest ever international goal, scoring in the 11th second against South Korea in 2002.
He was so famous in his country that his marriage was broadacast live on national television, with the prime minister Tansu Ciller and the mayor of Istanbul Recep Tayipp Erdogan performing the ceremony.
So, when he retired at the age of 36, it seemed like nothing could go wrong for the 'Bull of the Bosphorus'. He began his post-football life as many do, venturing into football punditry, but he soon progressed into the world of politics, starting down a path that would end in tragedy.
He began by running as an MP for the Justice and Development party, the party of his esteemed wedding guest Erdogan, however he split from the party in 2013 when the decision was made to shut down a network of schools run by opposing political movement, the Gülenists. He became an independent MP, flirting with controversy by claiming he was Albanian and not Turkish.
In 2016 he was arrested for tweeting derogatory comments about the president, his old friend Erdogan. Then, later that same year, came the famous attempted Turkish coup d'etat. It failed, and chaos reined in the country, with the fingers being pointed at the aforementioned Gülenists. Due to his suspected links to the opposition, Sukur was arrested and charged with membership of an armed terrorist group.
Sukur was told that if he renounced Gülen he would be freed, but the ex-footballer refused. His family was arrested and charged with supporting the coup as their assets were seized, and Hasan Sukur was forced to flee the country.
He escaped to America, where he remains to this day, exiled from his home, separated from his family, and outcast from a country where he was once a hero and a football icon.