THE POSSIBILITY of Larnaca football club AEK signing Turkish Cypriot midfielder Sabri Selden receded yesterday when both Interior Minister Christodoulos Christodoulou and resigning club President Stavros Xenis raised doubts about the nationality of the player’s parents.
Sources suggest that the problem centres on the mother, believed to be Turkish. Board members and fans of AEK expressed displeasure about the possibility of the club signing a Turkish player, forcing club President Stavros Xenis to release a statement confirming that he had resigned his position at the club.
It was also clear from Christodoulou’s statement that the government was unhappy at being informed about the player through the mass media rather than by club officials before it became an issue for public discussion.
Christodoulou made it clear that if citizenship could be established through presentation of the appropriate documents then no further obstacles remained in Selden signing football for a Cypriot football club. However, warned the Minister, should they fail to provide what is required, the presence of the family in the free areas was illegal and permission could not be given.
Christodoulou also confirmed that Tuner Selden, the player’s father, yesterday met with George Theodorou, Deputy Officer for Immigration.
In a separate statement, Government Spokesman Michalis Papapetrou confirmed that the Cabinet had been briefed about the situation and that they would await the Minister’s decision. Papapetrou explained that in cases where children were born on the island with a single Turkish Cypriot parent a law existed, passed in 1999, giving the Cabinet the power to judge individual cases and make a decision on granting citizenship. Papapetrou further clarified the situation for Selden by stating that if the family chose to file an application for Cypriot citizenship it would be processed urgently and a decision would be submitted to the cabinet by next Thursday.
However, the statement faxed by Xenis to the Cyprus Mail made it clear that the player had signed a personal contract to Xenis himself and not the club, but that its validity was dependent on the player establishing citizenship. The fax confirmed that all members of the AEK board resigned yesterday and that a general meeting for re-election was scheduled for Monday.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
