Teams kick-off against the sports embargoes
TURKISH football legends, an American motor car racer and TRNC politicians took to the football field on Monday night to make a stand against the sports embargoes imposed on North Cyprus.
They unfurled a banner, in Turkish, that read “We strongly condemn the embargo on sport” before the start of a friendly celebrity game in front of thousands of spectators at the Atatürk Stadium in Lefkoşa.
Prime Minister Ersan Saner and Turkey’s Youth and Sports Minister Muharrem Kasapoğlu got the game between the “Red” and “White” teams under way with a ceremonial kick-off, together with the game’s two female footballers, Aycan Yanaç, a professional player from Turkey, and the TRNC’s Başak Ruso.
Event organisers had originally said that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Ersin Tatar would get the game started, but they were absent from the event.
Others who took part in the 30-minute match, won 4-3 by the Red Team, included former Turkish men’s national team stars Tuncay Şanlı, Sabri Sarıoğlu, Mehmet Aurelio, Hamit Altıntop, and Hakan Ünsal; 2014 and 2009 Formula Drift Champion Chris Forsberg; TRNC Deputy Prime Minister Erhan Arıklı; National Unity Party MP and senior adviser to President Ersin Tatar, Oğuzhan Hasipoğlu; and TRNC Prime Ministry
undersecretary Hüseyin
Amcaoğlu, who scored two of the Red Team’s goals.
The match took place on the third and final night of the International North Cyprus Culture and Sports Festival, which also featured a free concert by Turkish pop star Hande Yener and a spectacular lights and fireworks show.
Speaking before the kick-off, İbrahim Benter, the head of the North Cyprus Evkaf foundation, which jointly organised the event with Turkey’s Archers Foundation, said the youth of the TRNC could not participate in global competitions due to the “unfair embargoes”.
“If TRNC youth are given the opportunity, they will achieve great success in the world,” he said.
Prime Minister Ersan Saner with US drift driver Chris Forsberg before the kick-off
Archers Foundation president Haydar Ali Yıldız said in his speech: “Turkish Cypriots are not alone, we are always here.”