FOUNDATION & CREST
Galatasaray
A club that began in a classroom.
How did a club begin, and how did its colours and crest tell its story?
- Founded
- 1905
- Place
- Galatasaray High School, Istanbul
- Founding figures
- Ali Sami Yen, Asım Tevfik Sonumut, Emin Bülent Serdaroğlu and their friends
01 / BEGINNINGS
The founding story
Galatasaray began with schoolboys who wanted a team of their own. Ali Sami Yen and his friends decided to form the club at Galatasaray High School in autumn 1905. Looking after the ball, collecting small contributions and washing the shirts were among its first shared responsibilities.
Foundation and registration are different milestones: the team dates to 1905, while formal registration followed in 1913. After early colour changes, red and yellow were adopted in 1908. The school association grew into a lasting part of Istanbul football.
Milestones in the story
- 1905Founded at the school
- 1908Red and yellow adopted
- 1913Formal registration
- 1923Ghayn-sin crest adopted
02 / IDENTITY
How the crest took shape
Şevki Ege’s proposed eagle carrying a ball was not adopted. The familiar crest grew from the interlocking Ottoman letters ghayn and sin drawn by Ahmet Ayetullah for the student magazine Kara Kedi. Şinasi Reşit brought it to the assembly; Dr Namık Canko presented it for adoption in 1923.
The interlocking idea continued with Latin G and S letters after the alphabet reform. The outline and use of stars evolved, while the core monogram remained recognisable. The old-letter image below represents the early monogram, not the discarded eagle proposal.
The changing shape of the crest
Historical designs and the current crest are shown to compare the club’s identity. Not every minor shirt-print difference represents a separate official design.