Help us on Gazprom deal, club tells PM

ANTALYA - Anatolia News Agency

Antalyaspor’s Ergün Teber (R) struggles for the ball during a match against Bursaspor in the league. AA photo

Antalyaspor’s chairman has called on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to help the club by asking Russian President Vladimir Putin to support the club’s potential sponsorship agreement with Russia’s state-run energy giant Gazprom when the two meet today.

“The sponsorship process [with Gazprom] has a particular [path],” Hasan Akıncıoğlu said yesterday. “For example, Gazprom and [German football giant] Schalke 04 signed a sponsorship deal after a bilateral discussion between Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.”

Akıncıoğlu said he and his colleagues had visited Russia to pursue sponsorship agreements and had held encouraging talks with senior executives of Gazprom. Noting that Turkey was Gazprom’s second largest customer after Germany, Akıncıoğlu said.

“Some 20 percent of the imported Russian gas is consumed in Antalya, because the largest gas-fired power plant is in this province. Antalya is important for Gazprom,” he said.