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For the first time in its fifteen years of brilliant yet unsuccessful candidacies to host the Olympic Games (OG) and the Football European Championships (Euro), Turkey was admitted into the elite group of countries capable of staging sports mega-events. Although it failed in the last round for the 2020 OG (beaten by Tokyo in 2013), and for the Euro 2016 (beaten by France in 2010), it has since been tipped as the strong favourite to host Euro 2024. International matches have been simultaneously utilized by the Turkish government as an opportunity to publicly demonstrate its willingness to resolve historically problematic issues with other countries. In this paper, it will be argued that Turkey’s ambitions to host sports mega-events and its politicization of specific matches can be interpreted as a strategy of the state to diffuse a positive image at home and abroad, and consolidate its role in the region. A distinction will be made between the use of sport, more accurately football matches, as a tool of diplomacy (in which the state remains the main actor of the process in the context of bilateral relationships) and the use of sports events, which includes also the involvement of sports actors for more diffuse ends. Rather than referring to the concept of soft power, the notion of sport diplomacy will be utilised to analyse Turkey’s influence through the strategic use of sport. Specifically, through the comparative analysis of successive bid proposals to host the Istanbul Games, the AKP’s strategy to promote Turkey’s new power will be critically appraised.

Turkish sports diplomacy in the service of renewed power? The uses and limits of Turkey’s “sport power”