In four years, the CEFL never went farther than Bratislava in Slovakia, or Hohenems on the far west of Austria. Although there was always interest, the league shied away from going too far away from the rest of the CEFL teams. Still, a contact from a Turkish club stirred some interest on the league’s side as well. The result: the Istanbul Cavaliers will participate in the CEFL for the 2010 season.

“Our vision is to play on a higher level. That’s the main part of our interest. On the other side, we would like to develop our team in a way that one day it will financially stand on its own feet without any support. To achieve this goal, we should make our team a marketable product. Among many other drivers, competing in Europe is a crucial part of it. We should attend to European competitions and sustainably be successful in those competitions. Last year we made a research and found out that the best teams in our neighboring region attend to CEFL. CEFL is an organization where the level of football is higher than TAFL (Turkish League)”, says Bahadır Ilgaç of the Cavaliers.

The Turks will however this year play only in the Wild Card Cup. Originally envisioned as a several team tournament, for teams that could not yet participate in a full schedule CEFL season, the Cavaliers will play one game for a playoff spot in the end. Against the Cineplexx Blue Devils no less, last year’s runner-up — a tough introduction game indeed.

“We would definitely prefer to play 3-4 more games in this season. But we know that we need to prove ourselves to the management of the League. It’s not only about level of football, we also need to prove that we do handle the things outside the field as well, like game day organizations, promotion of games, media support and everything.”

“We are in negotiations with Vukovi for a game in May in Istanbul and we are also attending to EFAF Challenge Cup this year; we definitely target the title up there this season. We are also going go to Bucharest to play against the Bucharest Warriors in April. All these will make 5-6 international games for this season which will be a good preparation for us for the 2011 season.”

Ilgaç says the Turkish league — TAFL — is still behind, and that how well they will play this season is uncertain, but they are doing quite well in the TAFL, finishing last year second, and currently being second in the regular season with a 5-1 record.

“For TAFL, I can say that we have a very competitive League. Levels of teams are very close to each other. And I believe that all the teams in 1st division and even 1-2 teams in second division could compete in European Level if they were managed as well as the teams in CEFL. However, our teams are lacking professionalism in management we, as the newest team in TAFL, established in 2005, were the runner ups of last season and so far leading the League with a 5-0 record [at the moment of the interview].”

“We watched the records of the games in CEFL. In the near future we want to come and see the games from the stands as well. For now, I can say that our level is in the middle, we can compete with some teams in the league. And against some other teams in the League, we can still compete but honestly speaking we will have little chance of winning. Vukovi and Blue Devils are among those teams. The game in June against Blue Devils and in May against Vukovi if we will make it will be good tests for us to see where we are. Level of these teams is our target. We want to catch their level within 2-3 years. I know also Novi Sad, Wolves and Silverhawks have very strong teams and good organizations. “