'Goalkeepers for hire': A profession in Turkey's artificial turf football

Photos: Özgür Sarak

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One of the troubles of playing football on the street or artificial turf pitches is finding a goalkeeper. No one wants to be "the lonely person on the pitch."

With the deepening economic crisis during the coronavirus pandemic, "the lonely person on the pitch" has turned into a "goalkeeper for hire." Several websites have been set up to publish job advertisements for goalkeeper jobs.

The founder of an advertisement website for goalkeepers, Ercan Aydınlık, says he started playing as a goalkeeper in his childhood and played for youth teams of several clubs.

He has been playing on artificial turf since 2002 and got his first job as a paid goalkeeper in 2005, he says.

Having founded the kiralikkaleci.com website in 2012, Aydınlık currently works with more than 80 goalkeepers. New goalkeepers who want to join the team play in trial games, he says.

Generally, people who played in youth teams apply to them and a goalkeeper earns 60 lira (7 USD) for a one-hour game, says Aydınlık.

Before the pandemic, a goalkeeper would earn about 1,000 (117 USD) lira a week, he says. While it seems to be a good income considering the country's economic situation, goalkeepers cover the travel expenses themselves and sports gear is expensive, Aydınlık notes.

Ercan Aydınlık

"Sometimes, goalkeepers ask, 'I have been fired, I need money. Can you send me to every match'?" he says.

However, he notes, people from various parts of İstanbul want to hire a goalkeeper and sometimes they don't want the same keeper anymore, which makes it difficult to earn a regular income, Aydınlık notes.

"It was busy before the pandemic"

There are also paid goalkeepers that work individually. One of them is Cihan Daşlıçay, who has been regularly working as a hired goalkeeper since 2014.

Cihan Daşlıçay

Played as a goalkeeper in a youth team during his childhood, he says the work was very busy before the pandemic. "I was playing in so many games that my child had to come to matches to spend time with me," he says.

However, he says, it is difficult for this job to be a significant income source even if it's done at a busy schedule, pointing out the high equipment prices. (ÖS/SO/DŞ/VK)