Erdogan moves to sign a volleyball star!

The president of Turkey's Volleyball Federation revealed interesting and unprecedented details of the process of recruiting Melissa Vargas and expediting the Cuban star's citizenship application.

According to "Varesh Se", Melissa Vargas is currently considered one of the most prominent women's volleyball players in the world, but the presence of this Cuban star in the Turkish national volleyball team has an interesting story.

Turkish Volleyball Federation President Mehmet Akif Öztundog has explained how the country managed to attract Cuban volleyball superstar Melissa Vargas to its national team.

According to him, Serbia had previously issued citizenship to Vargas, but the Turkish side immediately took action and by arranging urgent negotiations with the player's representative, he was able to complete the necessary documents in just one day.

Ostendog has been interested in Vargas since he was young. This player later went to Europe and started playing for Fenerbahçe in 2018. The Turkish Volleyball Federation also continued to follow his situation and hoped to one day add this Cuban star to their national team.

The turning point of the story was a phone call in the middle of the night; The call informed Ostendog that Vargas had received a Serbian passport and could choose this country to continue his international activities.

The head of the Turkish Federation immediately ordered to contact Boyan Simurina, the volleyball representative of this player, and send him to Türkiye on the first flight in the morning. According to Ostendog, after four hours of negotiations, Vargas agreed to play for the Turkish national team.

Due to the length of the usual naturalization process, Ostendog approached Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, the foreign minister of Türkiye at the time. The issue then reached Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of this country, and finally the process of obtaining citizenship accelerated.

According to the head of the Turkish Volleyball Federation, all the necessary steps were completed within 24 hours. Vargas received Turkish citizenship in April 2021, and after the waiting period was over, he played for the first time in 2023 with his new national team shirt.