KOA wage bill deprives sports of funding

The head of the Amateur Sports Federation (Koeas), Antonis Drakos, called on Sunday for the slashing of the Cyprus Sports Organisation’s (KOA) operational costs as it absorbed a big chunk of the state funding that could have gone to sports.

In his address at the Koeas annual general meeting, Drakos said that the state spending was enough to fund all sports and help them develop, but that could only be achieved through a full revision of the expenses of KOA.

A balance must be achieved, he said, as to the allocation of funds available to KOA, a semi-governmental organisation that manages the funding of sports federations.

Drakos said that the operating costs of the KOA must be drastically reduced. There was no justification for the sports authority’s wage bill to be as high as the total state funding of sports.

 He added that more money was spent on physical education trainers at National Guard camps than for all sports federation coaches.

 “It has to be made clear once and for all. KOA does not do sports. Sports are organised and promoted by the federations. KOA is supervising, and supervision cannot cost more than the object it supervises “, Drakos said.

The Chairman of the Technical Committee of the federation Antonis Georgalidis said that Koeas, during 2017, has celebrated many achievements but that they could achieve much more if they had more support and assistance.

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