President Erdoğan visits Abdi İpekçi Basketball Development Center in Istanbul

 

Speaking at Abdi İpekçi Basketball Development Center, President Erdoğan said: “The importance we have attached to the development of Türkiye’s sports infrastructure in the last 21 years and the investments we have made for this purpose are well known. We have increased the total number of sports facilities in our country from 1,575 to 4,340.”

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan delivered remarks after inspecting the Abdi İpekçi Basketball Development Center in Istanbul.

Pointing out that the Abdi İpekçi Sports Hall could no longer meet people’s needs, President Erdoğan noted that the building, whose foundation was laid in 1979 and commissioned in 1989, had serious problems in terms of earthquake resistance.  Noting that they decided to demolish the hall and rebuild it in line with the moves to strengthen Türkiye’s sports infrastructure, President Erdoğan said: “We planned our new project in an understanding that it is more than a sports hall, but a modern sports complex that dazzles in every aspect. We gave this task to the Housing Development Administration (TOKI), which is the pride of our country with the buildings it constructed.”

“WE INCREASED THE TOTAL NUMBER OF SPORTS FACILITIES IN TÜRKİYE TO 4,340”

President Erdoğan stated that TOKI and the Ministry of Youth and Sports immediately started to work in cooperation, and that great progress was made in a short time in the construction project, which was tendered in November 2021.

“The importance we have attached to the development of Türkiye’s sports infrastructure in the last 21 years and the investments we have made for this purpose are well known. We have increased the total number of sports facilities in our country from 1,575 to 4,340.

We expanded synthetic football, basketball and volleyball courts to the neighborhoods. We increased the number of athletics tracks from 12 to 59, the number of half and full Olympic swimming pools from 46 to 622, and the number of sports halls from 372 to 904. We supported infrastructure investments with our projects aimed at training athletes. We encourage people of all age groups to do sports and to be interested in a sport regularly. As a result of our efforts, the number of licensed athletes increased from 278,000 to 14,390,000 and the number of active athletes increased from 206,000 to 4,315,000. The number of coaches training these athletes reached 308,000. The number of our sports clubs has increased from 6,035 to 21,500 today. The success of our country in international sports competitions is also increasing year by year.