A.P.O.E.L. football club President Dinos Fysentzides yesterday slammed a group of neo-nazi APOEL fans called the Pirates, saying they were in no way affiliated to the Nicosia club and were barred from attending its games.
Soccer fans had expressed concern after the Pirates, dressed in black T-shirts, were seen waving swastikas and Nazi insignia at games, and raising their right arms in the fascist salute.
Police yesterday insisted their presence at games would not be tolerated, and that any Pirates showing up would be arrested immediately.
The Pirates’ website includes pictures of Adolf Hitler, as well as General George Grivas and Greek Dictator Ioannis Metaxas. They praise Hitler’s “struggle against Zionism and the survival of the Aryan race”.
“They say that Hitler turned Jews into soaps and killed them in gas chambers, but these are just Jewish fairy tales, they never happened and there was never a holocaust,” a biographic note on Hitler reads on the site.
“Fuhrer, we belong to you, we clear your path to victory. The path to the great revolution, sieg heil!” they say on the site. The Pirates also warn communists and anyone with Turkish blood to enter stadiums at their own risk.
The Pirates were founded by three people in 2000, and vowed to hit back at anyone burning Greek flags or replacing the cross with a hammer and sickle.
In a statement, the Pirates warn: “Where the law is unjust, violence is a duty.”
The site also shows pictures of APOEL’s former Croatian player Varnavas Stipanovic apparently wearing one of the Pirates’ T-shirts.
APOEL president Fysentzides said yesterday he was concerned at the reported increase in the group’s membership from 10 in 2000 to 75 this year.
“They have nothing to do with us — we have kicked them out of our fan clubs,” he said.
“I have personally kicked them out of a basketball game and out of a game at the GSP stadium.
“We have given their names to the police, we do not sell them tickets, and if they are seen at games they are arrested.
“Stipanovic never wore one of their T-shirts,” Fysentzides added. “The photograph they show must have been tampered with.”
Police spokesman Demetris Demetriou told the Cyprus Mail that police know about the hooligans, and that if they are seen in or around football stadiums they are immediately arrested.
The group’s website is not hosted in Cyprus.
“We know who they are, we are doing our best to stop them, but sometimes it’s difficult to find them because they don’t always wear their T-shirts,” Demetriou said.
“This sort of behaviour will not be tolerated, and we will continue to keep them out of games as much as possible.”
