Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

Some Lesser Known Facts About Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

• Does Recep Tayyip Erdoğan smoke?: Not Known

• Does Recep Tayyip Erdoğan drink alcohol?: Not Known

• Erdoğan once said in 2003 that I am a Georgian. My family is a Georgian family which migrated from Batumi to Rize.

• Erdoğan was brought up in Rize city of Turkey where his father was a member of the Turkish Coast Guard.

• During his youth, Erdoğan would play football. Between 1969 and 1982, he played local football and when he was 16 years old, he is believed to have transferred to amateur league football. Fenerbahce, one of the country’s best teams, wanted to sign him but his father opposed it. Even today, he can be seen playing football in the ground.

• In 1999, he was given 10 months prison for reciting a controversial poem. After serving 4 months in prison, he was forced to lay off his mayoral position.

• Turkish Police apprehended over 50 people in December 2013 including the general manager of Halkbank and the sons of three government ministers, for the corruption charges. Though Erdoğan put the blame on foreign ambassadors and pro-Erdoğan newspapers accused the United States or Israel of a conspiracy, outside analysts attribute the arrests to a power struggle between the Prime Minister and Fethullah Gülen.

• On 18 April 2004, Erdoğan was listed in the TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people.