In divided Cyprus, FC Barcelona youth camp sparks new dispute: What to know
A planned Barca Academy camp in northern Cyprus has offered more fuel to the controversy over the island’s unresolved divide, rasing tensions over recognition, access and international isolation.
ANKARA — A youth soccer camp bearing one of the world’s biggest sporting brands has become the latest flashpoint in the decades-old Cyprus conflict, pulling a children’s training program into the island’s unresolved battle over recognition, isolation and legitimacy.
The website of FC Barcelona, one of the world’s most prominent soccer clubs, announced earlier this month that the Barca Academy, the club’s international youth training program, would hold a camp on Sept. 7-11 and Sept. 16-20 in Cyprus and listed the venue as “Lefkosa, Northern Cyprus.”
The news raised objections from the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus, which argued that the wording and the event risked lending legitimacy to the breakaway Turkish Cypriot administration. The Cyprus Football Association raised the issue with its Spanish counterpart and UEFA. By Thursday, the camp's details had been removed from the website.
Cyprus remains ethnically divided between the Republic of Cyprus, an EU member state led by Greek Cypriots, and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognized only by Ankara since Turkey's 1974 military intervention, which followed a Greek-led coup aimed at unifying the island with Greece.
Turkey, Greece and Britain — which governed the island until Cyprus gained independence in 1960 — remain guarantor powers under the island’s complex political arrangement. Turkish Cypriots make up more than 20% of the total population on the island.
Camp controversy
The event turned into a controversy last week after news of the camp began circulating widely in Turkish Cypriot media.
The Cyprus Football Association said on Tuesday that its chairman, Haris Loizides, wrote to his Spanish counterpart, Rafael Louzan, asking him to intervene with FC Barcelona to prevent the camp from going ahead in the north.
In a statement, the association argued that holding the camp in Northern Cyprus would be contrary to the “current legal and regulatory framework.”
It asked FC Barcelona either to move the camp to Greek Cypriot-controlled areas of the Republic of Cyprus or not hold it on the island. Greek Cypriot government spokesperson Konstantinos Letymbiotis also said the Greek Cypriot government was diplomatically pursuing the issue through the appropriate international and sporting channels.
On Thursday, Letymbiotis Letymbiotis said the camp had been “postponed.”
FC Barcelona has not publicly explained what prompted the change. By Thursday, however, the page advertising the camp had been removed from the club’s website.
Soccer politics
The island’s political divisions have periodically spilled into sports. While a FIFA- and UEFA-backed 2013 agreement between the CFA and the Turkish Cypriot Football Association sought to bring the latter under the umbrella of the internationally recognized CFA, implementation later stalled over the Turkish Cypriot body's legal status. The CFA requested the Turkish Cypriot Football Association be registered under the Republic of Cyprus, while Turkish Cypriot officials argued that the association was founded before the republic's creation and should be recognized without having to register again.
Amid mounting Greek Cypriot efforts to cancel the camp, the mood quickly soured on the Turkish Cypriot side, where local media had previously cast the youth camp as a rare opportunity for young soccer players to train under FC Barcelona’s development system.
Meanwhile, Turkish Cypriot leaders have argued that blocking such engagement only deepens the isolation of ordinary people and further hinders trust between the two communities.
Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman said in a statement on Wednesday that he did not want “any Turkish Cypriot or Greek Cypriot young person to be deprived, because of the Cyprus problem, of opportunities available to young people elsewhere in the world.”
“The sadness a Greek Cypriot young person might experience for such a reason cannot be a source of joy for me. As a human being, I also cannot accept the sadness of a Turkish Cypriot young person becoming a source of joy for any Greek Cypriot,” he added.
Turkish Cypriot Prime Minister Unal Ustel said the postponement was another example of what he described as efforts to “isolate Turkish Cypriots internationally.”
FC Barcelona has found itself entangled in the Cyprus conflict before. In 2014, Joan Laporta, who is now FC Barcelona's president, visited Northern Cyprus and met Turkish Cypriot officials amid discussions of a possible match involving a Catalan side. The match never materialized, but the visit drew criticism from the Greek Cypriot side.
