‘We will strive to unite TC football to the world’
SECRET meetings are being held to try to open up North Cyprus football to the world, and boost the international status of the Cyprus Turkish Football Association (KTFF), outgoing association president Hasan Sertoğlu has revealed.
Mr Sertoğlu, who says he will not stand for re-election to the helm of the KTFF this year, said the organisation was not prepared to let matters rest after hopes of building on a provisional agreement signed in November 2013 between the KTFF and Greek Cypriot equivalent Kop, backed by world football’s governing body, Fifa, came to naught.
“We weren’t going to turn the other cheek and just wait when the process came to a halt,” he said.
“Our vision to unite Turkish Cypriot football with the rest of the world continues with the same determination. We will see in the months ahead how it will pan out.”
Mr Sertoğlu said KTFF foreign affairs officer Orçun Kamalı had been engaged in meetings abroad on the issue, and added: “Once we know the outcome we will be able to determine . . . which road we will follow to open us up to outside football. HASAN Sertoğlu expressed condolences over the death on Monday of Costakis Koutsokoumnis, (right) the president of the Greek Cypriot-run Cyprus Football Association (Kop) with whom he negotiated the 2013 agreement.
Mr Koutsokoumnis, 61, had been suffering from cancer.
Mr Sertoğlu told Cyprus Today: “We had a good friendship and have been saddened to hear of his passing.
“This is completely separate to not seeing eye-to-eye on what happened when we tried to unite football in Cyprus.”
“We will soon arrive at a . . . point when we will call upon all our [football] clubs to take a decision, which we will share with all.”
He said progress was “not indexed” to his presence, commenting: “I will finish my duty. A line has been drawn . . . [and] another colleague will come and Gençlik Gücü v Yeni Boğaziçi Cihangir v Merit Alsancak Yeşilova Mağusa Türk Gücü v Lefke
Yenicami v Küçük Kaymaklı Yalova v Doğan Türk Birliği Binatlı v Ozanköy Gençler Birliği v Baf Ülkü
Türk Ocağı v GAÜ Çetinkaya
Cihangir went 2-0 up after 59 minutes and it took until the 81st minute for GAÜ Çetinkaya’s Erol to hit the back of the net from the spot. It was two minutes into injury time when David levelled the score.
Doğan Türk Birliği also dropped points at home as fourth-placed Binatlı ended their victory drought with a 2-0 win at Girne’s 20 Temmuz Stadium on Monday night.
Meanwhile Küçük Kaymaklı held on to fifth place, beating Yalova 3-0 at home last Saturday — the same day that ninthplaced Lefke won 5-1 against Türk Ocağı Limasol, in 12th, and Gençler Birliği, in eighth, secured a 3-2 victory against 13thplaced Gençlik Gücü.
A bottom-of-the-table tussle saw Ozanköy, propping up the bottom of the table in 16th place, go down 1-0 to Yeni Boğaziçi, now seven points ahead of them in 15th.
In a game played last Friday,
take over . . . and this will be followed by Hasan, by Hüseyin . . . by whoever.”
Meanwhile, he said, it was important to note that Fifa was “now writing directly to the KTFF . . . [and] we are implementing Fifa and Uefa rules — the infrastructure has been formed”. seventh placed Baf Ülkü Yurdu romped to a 4-1 victory over 11thplaced Mağusa Türk Gücü.