Taner Savut (10 August 1974 – 6 February 2023) was a Turkish

sporting director A sporting director, or director of sport, is an executive management position in a sports club. The role is well known as a manager role for European football clubs, which are sometime also "sports clubs", offering many types of sports. The sport ...

and

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who played as a

right back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

Playing career

Born in

İzmir İzmir ( , ; ), also spelled Izmir, is a metropolitan city in the western extremity of Anatolia, capital of the province of the same name. It is the third most populous city in Turkey, after Istanbul and Ankara and the second largest urban agglo ...

, Savut began his career at hometown club

İzmirspor İzmirspor is а Turkish football club based in İzmir, Turkey. They were founded with the name Altın Ay on 25 July 1923. Altın Ay merged with rivals Sakarya and formed İzmirspor on 28 November 1930. They are currently playing in the Turkish ...

in 1994 before joining Fenerbahçe in 1997. He played his sole European match on 29 September that year as the team lost 2–1 at home to Steaua București in the

UEFA Cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store Solid, solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, porcela ...

first round. In 1999 he moved to fellow

Süper Lig The Süper Lig (, ''Super League''), officially known as Spor Toto Süper Lig for sponsorship reasons, is a Turkish professional league for association football clubs. It is the top-flight of the Turkish football league system and is run by the ...

team Göztepe and a year later

Siirtspor Siirt S.K. is a sports club located in Siirt, Turkey. The football club plays in the Iddaa League B. It was founded as Siirt YSE (Road Water Electricity) in 1969. It was renamed as Siirt Köy Hizmetleri in 1989, as Siirt Jetpa S.K. in 1999 and as ...

, where he scored his only goal of 71 top-flight appearances, concluding a 3–0 home win over Gençlerbirliği on 6 May 2001. He then played in lower divisions for Sakaryaspor, Alanyaspor and Tokatspor until 2011.

Administrative career

Savut was

at Manisa before joining top-flight Hatayspor in July 2022.

Death

Savut died in the

2023 Turkey–Syria earthquake On 6 February 2023, at 04:17 Time in Turkey, TRT (01:17 Coordinated Universal Time, UTC), a 7.8 earthquake struck southern and central Turkey and northern and western Syria. The epicenter was west–northwest of Gaziantep. The ear ...

which struck on 6 February, in the same building collapse that killed Hatayspor player

Christian Atsu Christian Atsu Twasam (10 January 1992 – ) was a Ghanaian professional footballer who primarily played as a winger, although he was also deployed as an attacking midfielder or left back. Atsu began his career with Porto, also spending a seas ...

. He was 48, and his body was found on 21 February.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Savut, Taner 1974 births 2023 deaths Footballers from İzmir Turkish men's footballers Men's association football defenders İzmirspor footballers Fenerbahçe S.K. footballers Göztepe S.K. footballers Siirtspor footballers Sakaryaspor footballers Alanyaspor footballers Tokatspor footballers Süper Lig players Victims of the 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes