UEFA Champions League begins new season with Turkish clubs in action

The UEFA Champions League is launching its 2026-2027 season with a new 36-team league format. The opening week features 18 matches scheduled across September 8, 9, and 10. Turkish representatives Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe will both participate in the first round. Galatasaray is set to play away against Sporting CP on September 9, while Fenerbahçe will host Roma in Istanbul on September 10. The new format dictates that the top eight teams advance directly to the round of 16, while teams ranked 9th through 24th enter a play-off stage.

In the Turkish Süper Lig, the summer transfer window saw 202 players move between clubs. Of these, 119 were foreign players and 83 were domestic. Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray both focused on international talent, with Fenerbahçe completing five transfers, all of which were foreign players. Conversely, Alanyaspor recorded the youngest average age among new transfers at 21.87, while Fenerbahçe maintained the highest average age at 28.4.