Besiktas ultras: Who are the Carsi?

Few supporter groups in world football carry the reputation, mythology and political weight of Besiktas’s Carsi.

Loud, fiercely loyal, and famously impossible to categorise, they’ve become one of the most written-about ultras movements anywhere in the game – as known for storming the political stage as for their support in the stands.

Their story begins not in a stadium, but in a marketplace, forged during one of the most turbulent periods in modern Turkish history, and it’s shaped Besiktas’s identity ever since.

From a defining slogan that has echoed around stadiums worldwide, to a starring role in one of Turkey’s biggest political uprisings of the 21st century, Carsi’s influence has long outgrown football itself.

Here, FootballGroundGuide takes a closer look at who the Carsi really are, where they came from, and why they remain one of the most fascinating fan movements in world sport.

Where the name comes from and how it all began

Carsi takes its name from the old marketplace in the Besiktas district of Istanbul, on the European side of the Bosphorus, close to the club’s historic İnonu Stadium.

The word Carsi simply means “bazaar” or “market” in Turkish, and it became the name of the supporter culture that grew around Besiktas in the early 1980s.

Carsi is generally traced to 1982, when Mehmet Işıklar – better known among supporters as Optik Baskan- and fellow fans helped establish the group in the heart of Besiktas. What began as a gathering point for local supporters gradually developed into a distinctive terrace culture built around flags, banners, chants and travelling together to away matches.

It emerged in the shadow of Turkey’s 1980 military coup, a period marked by political repression and heavy censorship. That backdrop helped shape the anti-authoritarian streak that would become one of Carsi’s defining characteristics.

What started as a loose collection of fans coordinating flags, banners and away-day travel grew, over the following decades, into something far bigger than a typical ultras group.

“Carsi is against everything”

The group’s defining slogan, Carsi, her seye karsi! – “Carsi is against everything!” – has become one of the most famous chants in world football.

It’s often extended with a wink in Turkish as “Carsi, Ataturk haric her seye karsi” – “against everything, except Ataturk” – a nod to the group’s complicated relationship with Turkish politics and history.

Carsi’s symbol is a stylised red “A”, drawing visibly on the anarchist circle-A, though the group has always resisted being pinned to a single ideology.

Members have broadly described themselves as anti-racist, anti-fascist, anti-sexist and pluralist, but Carsi has never operated as a formal political organisation with a rigid doctrine – part of what’s made it so hard for outsiders, and occasionally the Turkish state, to categorise.

The Gezi Park protests and the bulldozer

Carsi’s most famous moment away from football came in the summer of 2013, during the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul.

What began as demonstrations against plans to redevelop Gezi Park grew into a nationwide protest movement and one of the biggest episodes of public dissent against then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government.

Carsi members were among the most visible football supporters involved.

In one widely-shared moment, a group of supporters commandeered a construction bulldozer left near Inonu Stadium and used it to push back police water-cannon vehicles – an image that became one of the defining visuals of the entire movement.

Their involvement came at a serious cost. In 2014, 35 Carsi members were indicted and put on trial, accused of “attempting to overthrow the government” during the protests, with prosecutors seeking life sentences.

The case became a flashpoint, drawing international attention and solidarity protests from fan groups across Europe.

The defendants were acquitted in 2015, but that verdict was later overturned by Turkey’s Court of Cassation in 2021, sending the case back towards a retrial.

After more than a decade of legal proceedings, all 35 defendants were acquitted again in December 2024.

A brief disbandment, and tragedy nearby

In May 2008, Carsi announced that it was disbanding following internal disagreements over the group’s direction.

The announcement shocked Turkish football and sparked huge debate among Besiktas supporters. But the apparent end proved short-lived.

By August 2008, Carsi had announced its return to the stands, underlining something that has remained true throughout its history: the distinction between Carsi as a formal group and Carsi as a wider supporter culture has never been entirely clear.

Besiktas’s relationship with its home ground has also been marked by tragedy unconnected to the ultras themselves.

In December 2016, two bombs exploded near the club’s Vodafone Arena roughly two hours after a league match had finished and fans had largely dispersed.

The attack killed 46 people – 39 police officers and seven civilians – and was claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK).

FGG says:

Carsi are proof that a football ultras group can be so much more than noise, flares and choreography – though they’ve never been short of those either.

From a Besiktas marketplace to the front lines of one of Turkey’s biggest political movements, Carsi have carved out an identity that genuinely transcends the club they support.

Their slogan might say they’re “against everything,” but in practice they’ve come to represent something far more specific: a pluralist, self-aware and deeply organised supporter culture that few groups in world football can match.

Love them or find them bewildering, there’s no denying Carsi remain one of the most compelling stories in the global ultras scene.