Probe into activities of Cyprus Football Association president

The details of accusations made against Cyprus Football Association (CFA) president Giorgos Koumas came to light on Thursday as an investigation into his activities by the sports ethics committee is ongoing.

Koumas stands accused of having created an “unfair advantage” for some clubs by way of manipulating the money paid to them as part of television rights deals.

“Teams received money in violation of agreements … in such a way as to create an unfair advantage in favour of some clubs,” Phileleftheros reported on Thursday.

This includes an accusation that money paid to the CFA by CytaVision for television rights to domestic Cypriot football matches “was distributed by the CFA, in time and quantity, according to the will of Giorgos Koumas”.

“It is also noted that he received CytaVision’s millions from the television agreements and sponsorship on behalf of the teams and distributed them as he wanted,” the accusations state. “There were occasions where CytaVision money was given on the instructions of [Koumas] in violation of the agreements made with the clubs,” the paper said.

In addition, Koumas is accused of having granted a bonus of €200,000 to one club “without reasonable cause”, and that this bonus was granted while the club in question was participating in games surrounded by “suspicious betting activity”.

However, Koumas’ lawyers had earlier protested the validity of the investigation and the report which is set to come out in due course.

In a joint statement on Wednesday, Koumas’ lawyers Christos Triantafyllides and Marios Orphanides claimed that “during the investigation, we became aware of numerous violations of both the legal and constitutional rights of our client, and that a conclusion has been drawn up without taking into account the positions of our client and other CFA officials”.

The committee’s statement, which came later the same day, denied these claims, saying that Koumas and those connected to him were given repeated opportunities to come forward and testify “but chose not to do so”.

It added that despite the fact it does not wish to have any correspondence with the lawyers of people being investigated, “we have an obligation to clarify the situation” since the lawyers’ statements make specific allegations about those involved in the probe.