NINE people were slightly injured in the latest round of sporting violence, this time at a basketball game between Omonia Nicosia and Apollon Limassol on Sunday.
Three Apollon basketball players and three club officials sustained minor injuries during the scuffles while Omonia claimed that a club official and two former players received blows during the game at the Tassos Papadopoulos Eleftheria Stadium in Nicosia.
The stadium’s dressing rooms were also damaged.
Five police officers were on duty at the game, while backup was called in once violence erupted.
The basketball match was called off at half time, after Omonia supporters invaded the pitch and chased Apollon players.
Apollon was leading by 10 points at the time.
The game was only attended by the home fans, as is the rule of the Cyprus Basketball Association (KOK) in an effort to avoid violence between opposing fans.
According to eye witnesses, Apollon players and officials were hounded to the dressing rooms by enraged Omonia fans, who also hurled tear gas in the rooms where the Apollon players took refuge.
Apollon claim that aggrieved Omonia fans were armed with stones, steel bars and even a sword.
“If they were armed with all these objects then obviously this was a premeditated assault on us,” said Apollon basketball head, Giorgos Pappas, who accused Omonia officials of standing idly by while their fans invaded the pitch.
Omonia basketball official, Christoforos Christoforou condemned the violence and said that Omonia officials had even provided Apollon players with an Omonia kit so that they could be escorted outside the pitch unnoticed.
Christoforou said that the fans were provoked by the poor performance of the referees, the presence of Apollon officials in front of their stands, gestures from Apollon players and the presence of former Omonia players in jerseys of the club’s arch rivals, APOEL.
“We had warned of possible violence, since one of the referees assigned for this match was one of the three referees who umpired our November fixture with Apollon in Limassol,” said Christoforou.
During the November game, minor scuffles occurred between Omonia players and Apollon fans, with the match being interrupted for approximately 25 minutes.
Omonia issued a warning that it would not accept being umpired by any of the three referees again, and was subsequently fined by KOK for that statement.
Umpire Elisseos Christodoulou was third official on Sunday.
While the police has been criticised by both clubs for its meagre presence at Sunday’s match, police spokeswoman Nicoletta Tyrimou said that the police had arranged a meeting with KOK and the clubs prior to the match to discuss security measures.
“Nobody showed up for the meeting,” said Tyrimou.
Christoforou said that the rules needed to change so that clubs could control which fans entered the stadium, something that was not the case at the moment.
KOK general secretary, Neophytos Neophytides branded the meetings with the police a “mere formality”.
“The force clarified at the start of the season that there was not enough man power to police all matches” said Neophytides.
While Tyrimou could not confirm Neophytides’ claim, she said that the police needed “the cooperation of the clubs and shunning the meeting sent all the wrong messages.”
She said that clubs had taken no steps in curtailing fan violence in sports, thus leaving tax payers having to pay an estimated €1.5 million on police officers’ overtime for policing stadiums.
