Government defends efforts to halt FC Barcelona-licensed football camp in north

Nicosia, Cyprus. Government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis said on Thursday that efforts to secure the cancellation of a children’s football camp planned under licence on behalf of Spanish club FC Barcelona in the north were consistent with the actions of an internationally recognised state.

He said the government was using diplomacy to present what it considers the real state of affairs, while also referring to a 2013 agreement on Turkish Cypriot football’s international recognition.

Government position

Responding to a question from the Cyprus Mail, Letymbiotis said, “We are doing exactly what an internationally recognised state should do.”

“It is with diplomacy that we are operating, and what we are doing is to clearly present the real state of affairs,” he added.

Earlier in the day, Letymbiotis said the football camp had been “postponed”.

2013 football agreement

Letymbiotis referred to an agreement reached in 2013 which envisaged the Cyprus Turkish Football Association (CTFA) joining the Cyprus Football Association (CFA), allowing Turkish Cypriot football to gain international recognition.

The CTFA was formed in 1955 after Turkish Cypriot teams were prohibited from playing matches at football grounds owned by the church.

The agreement was signed in Zurich in 2013 by the heads of the two associations, Costas Koutsokoumnis and Hasan Sertoglu, in the presence of then Fifa chairman Sepp Blatter and then Uefa chairman Michel Platini. Turkish Cypriot football clubs unanimously approved the agreement in 2015.

Reports in 2016 said the agreement was never implemented after negotiations stalled over a procedural disagreement. The CFA wanted the CTFA to register in the Republic of Cyprus, while the CTFA argued that, because it predated the republic, it should have been automatically recognised.

When documentation was requested to support that position, the CTFA did not provide it. Koutsokoumnis said at the time that “without it, the procedure cannot continue”.

Meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader

Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman raised the football camp issue, along with the now-cancelled music festival that had been planned in Kyrenia, during a meeting with President Nikos Christodoulides on Wednesday.

Speaking about the festival last week, Erhurman said that “Greek Cypriot diplomacy has been conducting a campaign for some time”.

“The summary is this: ‘lifting or easing the isolation of the Turkish Cypriots will eliminate their desire for a solution’ and ‘introducing new confidence-building measures will make the status quo comfortable,” he said.