Turkey ruled out Sunday any suspension of its football league after a gun attack on the coach carrying one of the country’s top teams Fenerbahce that has been branded as “cowardly”.

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“I don’t think this is a situation that requires a suspension or cancellation” (of the league), Interior Minister Sebahattin Ozturk told reporters in the capital Ankara. 

He spoke after the Istanbul club called for the championship to be halted after a bus carrying its players home from a match on the Black Sea coast was hit by gunfire. 

“We consider that as long as this attack is not solved in a way that satisfies Fenerbahce and public opinion, a suspension of the championship is inevitable,” the club said on its website.

“Blood ran and football was silenced. Finding and punishing the culprits is of vital importance for Fenerbahce.”

The bus came under fire late Saturday as the Turkish Super Lig leaders passed through the northeastern town of Trabzon following their away game in nearby Rize, where they beat Rizespor 5-1, said club vice president Mahmut Uslu.

No players were hurt in the attack, but the driver was wounded in the face, Uslu said, accusing the still unidentified assailants of having tried to “crash the bus and kill the players”.

It was “a cowardly and inhuman” attack,” Sports Minister Cagatay Kilic said.

Media reports said the shots caused the driver to lose control of the vehicle but that a team security official managed to slam on the brakes to prevent it plunging into a ravine. The team had been on their way to Trabzon airport to catch a flight back to Istanbul and were later given an armed escort to the airport.

Kilic softened earlier opposition to the idea of suspending football matches, saying Sunday that “all options are being considered”.

Pictures of the bus showed a damaged windshield on the driver’s side. Trabzon governor Abdil Celil Oz confirmed the gun attack and said the driver’s life was not in danger.

“At first we thought stones had been thrown at the bus but police investigators at the scene have concluded it was an armed attack,” he told the television station 360.

The governor said he received a phone call from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a supporter of the Istanbul club, asking him about the investigation into the shooting. The Turkish Football Federation issued a statement condemning the incident “in the strongest possible terms” and called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice “immediately”.

Turkish media reacted with shock to the shooting, an unprecedented attack on a club in the football-mad country. “A black mark for Turkish football,” said the daily Hurriyet newspaper.

Last June, an Istanbul court ordered the retrial of Fenerbahce’s chairman who had faced jail over a match-fixing scandal. Aziz Yildirim was first sentenced to jail and fined 1.3 million lira ($580,000) in 2012 for match fixing during the 2010-2011 season and for forming a criminal gang.

In all, 93 people were originally convicted in the case and European football’s governing body UEFA barred Fenerbahce from the Champions’ League for two seasons as a result. Yildirim served about a year of his original sentence before being freed pending on appeal in July 2012.

Fenerbahce, which won its 19th Turkish league title this season, is currently at the top of the league table, ahead of Galatsaray and Besiktas.