Ali Demirkaya was banned from entering the stadium. So he did the most logical thing: rented a crane.
In Denizli, Turkey, this Denizlispor fan—known to everyone as “Friend Ali”—was serving a one-year ban from setting foot in the stands. But nobody said anything about watching from the sky.
He paid about 86 dollars for a lift platform, climbed into the basket with the club flag in hand, and began waving it as if he were in the front row, cheering from above while the other fans watched him float over the stadium wall.
Before all this, at the police station, he had signed a document promising that he would not watch the match inside the venue. Technically, he kept his word.
The police did not see it that way: they arrived halfway through the second half and ordered the crane to be lowered before the match ended. Ali got to see as far as the 75th minute of a historic rout: Denizlispor 5, Gaziantepspor 0. He left without entering the stadium, but with the smile of someone who had won too.
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