The Turkish club president who attacked a referee - who is Ankaragucu chief Faruk Koca?

Ankaragucu president Faruk Koca can claim to be one of the most politically connected figures in Turkish football, having been one of the founders of the party that has ruled the country for more than 20 years.

After helping establish the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, in 2001, Koca went on to become an Ankara MP for the party between 2002 and 2011.

Following his arrest for attacking referee Halil Umut Meler, however, it seems his political ties will not be enough to save him. In fact, Koca was expelled from the AKP during a meeting of the party’s executive committee on Tuesday.

In a phone call to Meler in hospital, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he had been “seriously disturbed” by the incident, adding: “We must quickly do whatever is necessary.” Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya described it as a “disgusting attack”.

Born in the village of Derekisla, some 70 kilometres south of Ankara, the 59-year-old Koca focused on overseas trade before launching his political career.

In the early years of the AKP, he is said to have been a member of Erdogan’s close circle, even renting a house in Ankara’s Subayevleri neighbourhood to the then prime minister.

He came to public attention in 2006 when he helped rescue Erdogan, who had fallen ill in a car that was locked from the inside. Finding a nearby sledgehammer, Koca is said to have smashed the car’s bulletproof window so the prime minister could be taken to hospital.

Another incident during his parliamentary term, however, indicated Koca’s volatile temper.

In 2009, Turkish media reported that he and another AKP MP were delayed at the Turkey-Syria border while returning by car from Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Makkah.

Although no legal action was