Steven Sadettin Saran (born 30 August 1964) is a Turkish athlete, businessman and sports executive.

Biography

Saran was born in

Denver Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

to a Turkish father and an American mother. He studied Mechanical Engineering at the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a Public University, public Land-grant University, land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky, United States. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical ...

in the United States. Saran, who later came to Turkey, worked at the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Later, he founded Saran Holding and assumed the representation of many well-known world brands. Between 1990 and 1995, he served as Assistant General Manager and General Manager at Martin Marietta's Ankara Office. While he was studying in the US, he was the team captain of the school's swimming team and was selected as the Most Valuable Athlete for two years. He was the captain of the Turkish National Swimming Team in 1984–1985 and broke the 50-meter freestyle swimming record during this period. Saran, who was a shareholder of

Borussia Dortmund Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e. V. Dortmund, often known simply as Borussia Dortmund () or by its initialism BVB (), or just Dortmund by International fans, is a German professional sports club based in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is ...

, one of the

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany and the highest level of the German football league system. The Bundesliga comprises 18 teams ...

teams, sold his shares after the racist and Islamaphobic reactions from the fans. Saran, who has a daughter named Lal from a previous marriage, speaks Spanish and intermediate German as well as English. Media organizations such as S Sport, Radyospor, Radyo Music, Radyo Traffic, Ajansspor sports portal and tuttur.com betting site also belong to Sadettin Saran. Saran is a member of the High Council of Fenerbahçe S.K. with registration number 9945. He took charge in the board as executive of the department of football during the presidency of

Aziz Yıldırım Aziz Yıldırım (born 2 November 1952) is a Turkish businessman and civil engineer who served as the 36th chairman of the Turkey, Turkish sports club, multi-sport club Fenerbahçe S.K., Fenerbahçe SK. He lost the election held on 3 June 2018 t ...

. His relations with Aziz Yıldırım sharply deteriorated because he did not approve the actions of the president, criticizing him clearly. As a result of this, he was illegally dismissed from the board. He sued the club for being unfairly expelled. Eventually, the Turkish Court concluded that Saran won the 7-year long case. On 16 December 2021, Saran stated that he would be a candidate for presidency of Fenerbahçe SK in the future.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saran, Sadettin Living people 1964 births American people of Turkish descent University of Kentucky alumni Businesspeople from Denver Businesspeople from Istanbul 20th-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesspeople 20th-century Turkish businesspeople 21st-century Turkish businesspeople Fenerbahçe S.K. board members