Ethics committee to investigate €200,000 Olympic Committee sponsorship

The House ethics committee has decided to write to the Treasury to address a €200,000 sponsorship by OPAP to the Cyprus Olympic Committee (KOE), its chair Demetris Demetriou said on Thursday.

The Disy deputy told the Cyprus News Agency that discussions on the matter concluded during Wednesday’s House ethics committee meeting, which focused on KOE as an institution and explored any problems and prospects for strengthening its role.

Demetriou said that during the first discussion of the issue, KOE members said that after the €200,000 donation by OPAP, a committee was created within the institution which was never convened.

He added that during Wednesday’s House ethics committee meeting, he questioned KOE president George Chrysostomou about this sum after examining the institution’s budgets for 2021 and 2022, finding no references to it.

Demetriou stated that Chrysostomou responded by explaining that the sum was not mentioned in the budgets because it was not directly received by KOE. Instead, it was used to cover other needs such as athlete payments, promotion, or other purposes.

Demetriou said that, according to accounting standards and the report from the auditor-general to the committee, there should be a note accounting for these €200,000. He added that there are other issues surrounding this specific sponsorship, including whether OPAP was exempt from paying tax on this amount and whether the money was indeed paid.

“However, since these matters cannot be left unresolved, we, as the House ethics committee, have decided to send a letter to the Treasury of the Republic, requesting further explanations for these €200,000,” he concluded.