Hakan Kutlu

Hakan Kutlu — Biography

Hakan Kutlu is a center-back and manager identified with Ankaragücü, and one of the rare one-club men in Turkish football. He wore the same shirt for 28 years from the youth side onwards, captained it for a long time and is the man the club's supporters call "Büyük Kaptan" (Great Captain). As a manager he has worked at clubs that move between the Süper Lig and the 1. Lig, and most recently, in 2025-26, he worked at Vanspor and Sakaryaspor.

He turned professional at Ankaragücü in 1992-93 and spent his whole playing career there, becoming the club's most-capped player in the Süper Lig with 356 matches. In that time he worked under six different presidents. He hung up his boots in 2007, moved into a sporting director's role and was put in charge of the team the same year, finishing his first season in eighth place. Denizlispor and Manisaspor came next. In December 2011 he took over the bottom-placed Ankaragücü again and saw the season out despite a financial crisis, but could not prevent relegation and left in July 2012.

From 2013 he worked at Mersin İdman Yurdu and took the team up to the Süper Lig through the play-off final. In 2016 he was in charge of Kayserispor and resigned in December 2016, he took over Denizlispor in 2021 and left in April, and in 2023 he agreed terms with Erzurumspor. He left Vanspor in December 2025 and was appointed at Sakaryaspor at the end of that month; the parties split in February 2026.