A TURKEY club president who attacked a referee was arrested today.

Referee Halil Umut Meler was approached on the pitch and hit by the president of MKE Ankaragucu, Faruk Koca, after a stoppage-time equaliser for their Turkish Super Lig opponents Caykur Rizespor.

Players and officials joined the melee or tried to intervene, and it has since been confirmed that Meler suffered a broken bone as a result of the attack.

Meler was taken to hospital after the incident, with the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) suspending domestic football in the country indefinitely in its wake.

The country’s Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said on his X account yesterday that Koca had been arrested “for injuring and threatening a public servant due to his public duty.”

Meler was visited in hospital in Ankara today by TFF president Mehmet Buyukeksi and Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya. Buyukeksi said Meler was likely to be discharged tomorrow.

“This sad event should definitely not be forgotten,” Buyukeksi said in quotes reported on the TFF’s X account.

“This should be a milestone. Today we will have important meetings. With our minister of youth and sports, with our minister of internal affairs, our minister of justice and our board of directors.

“We will provide detailed information after tomorrow’s board meeting. In this meeting, we will discuss all the issues clearly. We will give detailed information about the decisions we will make about how the league will continue.

“Let’s underline again – we strongly condemn the incident on behalf of the Turkish Football Federation board of directors and myself. This incident happened, but we cannot accept it being back to its old state in two weeks.”

In October Turkey was awarded joint hosting rights for Euro 2032 alongside Italy.

Buyukeksi said he had already received assurances from Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin that Monday’s incident had not jeopardised that project.

“There is no negativity. President Ceferin called and said ‘We are with you, we are ready to do whatever is necessary’,” Buyukeksi added.

“Please let us not misinform the public. Our goal is to ensure that football is played properly in Turkey and to continue as quickly as possible without any problems.

“But right now, our referee is important, the mental health of our referees is important. Other issues are not important. That is why we are here. We will make the necessary statements later.”

Meler has refereed in Uefa club competitions, and was in charge of West Ham’s Europa Conference League semi-final first leg against AZ Alkmaar last season.

Uefa’s chief refereeing officer Roberto Rosetti condemned the attack and added: “Violence and abuse against referees have no place in football and must stop immediately.

“We urge the authorities and the responsible disciplinary bodies to take decisive and necessary action against anyone involved in acts of abuse and violence against referees.

“Such unacceptable and distressing behaviour is detrimental to the efforts of national associations to recruit referees, which are essential for the running of the game.”

The boss of a referees’ charity warned today that an attack on a referee is “just around the corner” for top-flight football in Britain, unless attitudes towards officials change immediately.

Martin Cassidy, the chief executive of Ref Support UK, said he was not shocked by the incident and added: “The desensitisation of ref abuse has been left to fester for far too long and an incident like this, live on TV, is just around the corner in top-flight football in the UK unless we have a huge change in attitude and culture towards match officials at all levels of the game.

“Teams should not sign nor keep players who abuse referees, teams should not allow ‘fans’ and parents to spew abuse from the touchline and leagues need more powers to promptly expel teams and players from their leagues who are guilty of abuse and assault match officials.

“We hope the referee makes a full recovery both physically and mentally from this terrible incident and welcome the Turkish football authorities and the Turkish police for their robust and prompt response to this terrible incident.

“Referees all over the world have, for far too long, been viewed as fair game no matter what age the referee is. Referees are an endangered species due to abuse, threats and assaults.”

Cassidy said his organisation is alerted to “similar or worse” incidents as the Turkey attack every single week of the season.