Arda Turan, Turkey’s globally acclaimed midfielder who plays for Barcelona, was among several Turkish celebrities who publicly endorsed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s controversial campaign to become an executive president. The hirsute heartthrob even explained in a video to his 1.7 million Twitter followers the benefits of endowing Erdogan, an aspiring professional soccer player in his early youth, with virtually unlimited power.

Turan may well have believed that his close relationship with the Turkish leader lent him immunity as he hurled obscenities at a veteran journalist earlier this week before grabbing him by the throat. He was wrong. Turan was kicked off the national squad he led a day after playing in a critical World Cup prequalifier against Macedonia. The game ended with no score.

It was a rare moment when an act of violence by a self-proclaimed Erdogan protégé — Turan bragged over Instagram about his numerous telephone conversations with the president — did not go unpunished.

The president’s notoriously thuggish security detail, for example, has never faced official censure, not even when it added another dent in Turkey’s tattered international image by attacking pro-Kurdish protesters outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence in Washington.