Yes — Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe are both back in the Champions League this season, and for the first time since 2001/02 they are in the main draw together. What the draw did not do, though, is put those matches on your Digiturk Play subscription. If you are watching from abroad, here is what is actually happening: the fixtures, the dates, the kick-off times, and the part of the season Digiturk Play does carry.
The draw for the 2026/27 league phase was made on 27 August 2026, and it sent Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain, Liverpool, Atlético Madrid, Roma and Aston Villa onto the calendar for the two Istanbul clubs between September and the end of January.
Quick answer first, since it is the question most people land on this page to ask: Champions League matches are not part of Digiturk Play's line-up outside Turkey. UEFA licenses its club competitions country by country, and the international rights Digiturk Play sells abroad do not include them, no matter which package you are on. What Digiturk Play does carry is the rest of the Turkish football season, which is actually the bigger part of it: every Süper Lig match either club plays, the derbies, the Turkish Cup, and the studio shows around them, all with Turkish commentary on beIN Sports, live and on the same schedule as Turkey.
Watch Turkish football from abroad, with Turkish commentary
Every Süper Lig weekend, every derby and the Turkish channels your household actually watches, streamed legally on your TV, phone or laptop. No satellite dish, no installation, no missed kick-offs.
Set up in minutes on Smart TV, Apple TV, Android TV, Fire TV Stick, mobile and web. View the full channel list
Two Istanbul Clubs in the Same League Phase, for the First Time Since 2001/02
Galatasaray came into this campaign as Süper Lig champions, which put them straight into the league phase. Fenerbahçe arrived through the league's other automatic qualifying spot. Having both clubs in the competition at once changes how the season feels week to week: instead of one European night every so often, there is usually a Turkish side playing on both Tuesday and Wednesday.
The format has not changed since it was overhauled in 2024: 36 clubs, one table, eight different opponents each (four at home, four away), no groups. Finish in the top eight and you go straight to the round of 16. Finish 9th to 24th and you are into a two-legged play-off in February. Finish 25th or lower and the season in Europe is over, with no dropping into the Europa League as a consolation.
That format rewards a strong finish more than a strong start. The last two matchdays in January are usually where places get decided, partly because every game that day kicks off at the same time. If you have ever followed a Süper Lig title race go down to the final weekend, it is a similar feeling, just spread across a continent instead of a country.
Both clubs are also carrying a full domestic programme in parallel, which is where most people will actually end up watching them. A normal week in October or November looks like a European match midweek and a Süper Lig match at the weekend, and it is the weekend fixture that comes through your Digiturk Play subscription. For the club-by-club detail, see our guides to watching Galatasaray abroad and watching Fenerbahçe abroad.
Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe's Full League Phase Fixtures
Here is who each club faces over the eight matchdays. Home and away are split out separately, since that is what decides whether a given week means a night at home or a trip across Europe.
Galatasaray at home: Barcelona, Aston Villa, Feyenoord, Stuttgart
Galatasaray away: Paris Saint-Germain, Sporting CP, Lille, AEK Athens
Fenerbahçe at home: Liverpool, Roma, Villarreal, Slavia Prague
Fenerbahçe away: Atlético Madrid, Aston Villa, Shakhtar Donetsk, LASK
Galatasaray's draw looks like the tougher of the two on paper. A trip to the reigning champions in Paris and a home game against Barcelona at Rams Park are the two nights everyone will be watching, and Sporting and Lille both have the kind of pace that has given Turkish sides trouble in recent European campaigns. Feyenoord and Stuttgart at home are the matches most likely to actually decide the points total.
Fenerbahçe's list reads a little more evenly. Liverpool and Roma at Şükrü Saracöğlu will sell out weeks in advance, and the away trips to Atlético Madrid and Aston Villa are the hardest assignments on the list. LASK away and Slavia Prague at home look, on paper, like the fixtures a top-24 finish depends on.
One coincidence worth flagging: Aston Villa show up on both lists. They travel to Istanbul to play Galatasaray and host Fenerbahçe in Birmingham, two Turkish away days in the same league phase.
Why Aren't These Matches on Digiturk Play?
European rights are sold market by market. UEFA does not hand the Champions League to one broadcaster worldwide; it runs a separate sale in every country, and whoever wins that auction can only show the games inside that country's borders. That is why the same match airs on a completely different channel in Germany, France or the United States than it does in Turkey.
A Turkish subscription watched from abroad carries the rights Digiturk Play is licensed to distribute internationally, and Champions League is not part of that deal, for anyone, on any package. It is not a setting or a tier you can upgrade into. We would rather say that plainly here than have someone find out at 9pm on a Tuesday.
The same territorial rule works in the other direction, too. Turkish league rights for international distribution are exactly what Digiturk Play does hold, which is why the Süper Lig, the derbies and the domestic cup all reach you abroad with Turkish commentary while European nights do not. Same rule, opposite outcome.
What Digiturk Play Does Cover This Season
The Süper Lig is the core of the subscription. Every Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe league match, home and away, airs on beIN Sports with Turkish commentary, alongside the rest of that weekend's fixtures. Our 2026/27 Süper Lig fixture list lays out the season, including derby dates.
Around the matches themselves you get the build-up, the post-match analysis, the late-night debate shows, and next-day highlights, the same programming people in Istanbul are watching, at the same time, without a satellite dish. The Istanbul derby gets full coverage whenever it falls; our guide to watching the GS-FB derby abroad covers the timing by country, and watching live football abroad with Digiturk Play covers what a normal match night looks like.
Outside football, the subscription carries the Turkish channels the rest of the household watches too: news, series, films, and children's programming. Check the full channel list, the sports package for the football-focused tier, or the packages page to compare everything together.
Matchday Calendar and Kick-off Times
The league phase runs across eight matchdays between September and late January: 8-10 September 2026, 13-14 October, 20-21 October, 3-4 November, 24-25 November, 8-9 December, 19-20 January, and a final matchday on 27 January 2027 where all 36 teams kick off at once.
The knockout rounds follow in spring: play-offs on 16, 17, 23 and 24 February; round of 16 on 9, 10, 16 and 17 March; quarter-finals on 6, 7, 13 and 14 April; semi-finals across 27-28 April and 4-5 May. The final is Saturday 5 June 2027 at the Estadio Metropolitano in Madrid.
League phase kick-offs are staggered: 18:45 CET or 21:00 CET. Converted to Turkish time, that is 19:45 and 22:00 while European summer time is in effect, moving to 20:45 and 23:00 once the clocks change at the end of October, since Turkey does not observe the switch and stays on UTC+3 year-round. Viewers in Germany, the Netherlands, France and Belgium watch at the CET times as listed; the UK is an hour behind; on the US East Coast, the main kick-off lands mid-afternoon.
Those European dates are worth keeping an eye on for another reason: they push the Süper Lig fixture around them. When Galatasaray or Fenerbahçe play in Europe midweek, their league match usually moves to Saturday evening, the one that airs on Digiturk Play. Our guide to watching Süper Lig matches from abroad has the weekend timings by country.
What You Can Watch On
The app runs on whatever screens you already own:
- Smart TVs from Samsung and LG, through the Smart TV app
- Android TV boxes and Android-powered televisions, via the Android TV app
- Apple TV, with its own dedicated app
- Amazon Fire TV Stick, the cheapest way to turn an older TV into a streaming screen; see the Fire TV setup guide
- Phones and tablets on iOS and Android, for whenever kick-off catches you away from home
- Laptops and desktops, through a standard browser
A wired connection or strong Wi-Fi makes a real difference on derby weekends, when everyone in the building is streaming at once; 15-25 Mbps is comfortable for full HD. If the app stalls right before kick-off, the usual fixes are restarting the router, checking for an app update, or turning off a VPN running in the background; our troubleshooting guide walks through the rest.
Beşiktaş and Trabzonspor Are in Europe Too
Champions League is not the whole of Turkey's European season. Beşiktaş are in the Europa League league phase, and Trabzonspor are in the Conference League after dropping down from Europa League qualifying; both play their European nights on Thursdays, clear of the Tuesday and Wednesday Champions League slots.
The same territorial rights logic applies here: European fixtures are sold separately in every market and sit outside an international Turkish subscription, while the domestic season travels with you. See our guides to watching Beşiktaş abroad and following Trabzonspor from abroad.
Getting Set Up Before Matchday One
Subscribing takes a few minutes online, with no equipment to install: pick a package, sign in on whichever device you are watching on, and the account follows you between the TV at home, a laptop at work, and your phone. There is a free trial if you would rather see the service first, and the campaigns page usually has a seasonal offer around the start of the football year. Our step-by-step guide to applying for Digiturk Play from abroad covers payment and address details for Europe and North America.
One note on the alternatives you will see advertised: cheap IPTV services tend to fail at exactly the moment a big match gets interesting, and enforcement across Europe has reached the point where subscribers, not just the operators, are being fined. Our guides to IPTV penalties across Europe and Digiturk Play versus IPTV go through the real cost difference.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I watch Galatasaray or Fenerbahçe's Champions League matches on Digiturk Play?
No. Champions League rights are sold country by country by UEFA, and the international rights Digiturk Play holds do not include them, regardless of package.
What can I watch on Digiturk Play instead?
The full Süper Lig season for both clubs, the Istanbul derby, the Turkish Cup, and the studio programming around them, all live, with Turkish commentary, on beIN Sports.
When does the 2026/27 Champions League league phase start and end?
Matchday 1 is 8-10 September 2026; the league phase closes with a simultaneous matchday on 27 January 2027, followed by knockout rounds and a final on 5 June 2027 in Madrid.
What time do matches kick off in Turkey, Germany and the UK?
Kick-offs are 18:45 or 21:00 CET, which is 19:45/22:00 Turkish time before the October clock change and 20:45/23:00 after it. Germany, the Netherlands, France and Belgium follow the CET times directly; the UK is an hour behind.
Are Beşiktaş and Trabzonspor also in Europe this season?
Yes. Beşiktaş are in the Europa League league phase and Trabzonspor in the Conference League, both playing on Thursdays.
Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe playing Champions League football together again, for the first time in twenty-five years, is worth watching for even if it is not through this subscription. The fixtures are set, the season ends in Madrid, and everything else, the Süper Lig, the derby, the rest of Turkish television, is waiting for you on Digiturk Play whenever you are ready to set it up.
Do Comment