Presiding judge Mehmet Ekinci said prior to the court session opening that Turkish football was not on trial, but rather a collection of individuals.

Outside the court, some 2,000 fans at club Fenerbahce, which has been embroiled in the allegations along with at least eight other clubs, chanted in support of their club's chairman, Aziz Yildirim, the most high-profile of the 93 charged in the case.

Yildirim, a 59-year-old construction magnate who took over the club in 1998, sat in the front row of the court, wearing a yellow and blue club tie. He and the other suspects have been charged in a scandal that allegedly involves 19 league matches last season.

The case is being closely watched by European football's governing body, UEFA, which has stepped up pressure on the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) to act on the case.

Two weeks ago, the TFF chairman and his two deputies resigned over the federation's failure to agree on how to punish clubs implicated in the allegations.

League champions Fenerbahce were barred from UEFA's peak football tournament, the European Champions League, because of its involvement and could be stripped of its domestic title and face relegation.

Bribery scandals have also hit leagues in Italy, Israel, Finland and Greece in the last 12 months, despite UEFA spending millions of euros monitoring betting syndicates and investigating claims of players and referees receiving bribes.

dfm/ncy (AFP, AP)