Army to consider ways to accommodate sportsmen

A COMMITTEE is to be set up to establish whether young Cypriot footballers and other sportsmen do not have to give up their sports careers to do military service.

The committee is to look at ways in which a compromise formula can be found so that the young men could still pursue their chosen sport and do their army at the same time.

Discussions on the issue were held yesterday between Defence Minister Costas Papacostas and the Cyprus Sports Organisation, the Football Federation and other sports bodies.

Papacostas was non-committal on what the outcome would be. “The subject is not simple and needs further study,” he said.

The most well known case of a young Cypriot who battled long and hard to gain an extension to perform his military service was tennis champion Marcos Baghdatis. It was only granted after extreme pressure and widespread publicity. Yet the army grants hundreds of exemptions each year to conscripts claiming psychological illnesses.

Papacostas said yesterday that in the case of athletes, an in-depth discussion would take place on all the considerations to see to what extent they could be accommodated during their army service.

“The committee will prepare a study and inform us,” he added. “I hope we can come up with concrete solutions that will be jointly acceptable.”

The Minster added that he hoped something could be sorted out by July 1 when the first batch of new conscripts are due to present themselves for the army.

President of the Football Federation, Kostakis Koutsokoumnis said: “We do not propose the exemption from military service but perhaps some flexibility so that they can continue their education and training while doing their military service.”

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.