The Turkish football club Yorukalispor signed Ghanaian footballer Mohammed Sumailia last season for the sum of 10 liters of olive oil.
Sumailia hasn’t just played for the Yorukalispor club, he also played as an amateur for Torbali, Soma and Gazielmir in the previous 5 years, and next season, he will join Kütahya’s roster.
The villagers of the city Turca de Bursa, who are humble farmers, were able to capture the attention of the Ghanaian footballer with their eagerness to attract a talented player to Yorukalispor, for the sum of 10 liters of olive oil. Sumailia started by accepting an invitation from his former teammate Tayfun Albayrak from the team Izmir Gaziemirspor to play in a month long tournament for Yorukalispor.
Due to the humble situation of the villagers, they don’t have sufficient funds to pay professionals. Therefore, they decided they would pay the players with another source of economic compensation – a batch of local products, with the best product being 10 liters of Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
Sumailia is so good that, because of his great victory in the first game of the tournament he played in, the opposing team in the second game requested that Somailia not play in the first 20 minutes of the game. This was all in order to give them a competitive advantage and a chance to win.
Even though Sumailia accepted to participate in the tournament without being formally paid with money, he couldn’t refuse his other compensation, which he recognized was quite exceptional.