WE ARE deluding ourselves big-time if we believe that the abolition of the treaty of guarantee would automatically make our Kyproulla a normal country, as our politicians have been claiming for years. Much more than abolishing the treaty would need to be done, especially when our government and politicians go out of their way to prove that this is not a normal country.

They did it again on Thursday when a majority of deputies (admittedly a small one) approved the government’s scandalous law which will reward systematic law breakers with state funding generated by increasing the betting tax. I refer to the football clubs, which owe the state some €35.6 million in different taxes, an amount that has risen over many years of non-payment.

In normal Kyproulla, instead of prosecuting the men that run these clubs, governments have been arranging debt repayment schemes, which the majority have refused to honour, building up more debts. So, the Christodoulides government decided to reward this honourable behaviour by increasing the betting tax and using the extra revenue to pay the tax debts of the clubs.

A state that turns a blind eye to criminal offences, committed again and again, and rather than put the perpetrators in the slammer, rewards them with millions of the taxpayer’s money, is not normal, it is a joke – and not a very funny one.

THE BRAINS behind this colossally unjust piece of legislation, Finance Minister Makis Keravnos had the nerve to play the tough guy with the clubs, the day after the law was approved.

“The law that was approved does not negate or write-off anyone’s obligations,” he told Tass news agency, before sternly issuing a hollow warning. If the clubs did not fulfill their obligations “they will be treated in the way any citizen, who does not meet his obligations to the state, is treated,” he said. They haven’t been treated in the same way as anyone else for years, so why change now?

In theory, for the taxpayer bailout to kick in, the clubs will have to settle the tax debts they built up since the last time the government introduced a repayment scheme, in April 2023. This total amounts to €4m, with some clubs having honoured the last agreement, and it has to be paid by the end of this year. So Apoel, the record debtor with total tax dues of €11.6m (more than double the amount of the next highest debtor) needs to come up with €666,800 in two weeks, Ael with €683,200 and Apollonas with €1m.

Their players might have to accept that they will not be paid this month.

BIGGEST debtor Apoel which has debts amounting to €40m is insolvent and if the Cyprus Football Association enforced Uefa’s Financial Fair Play rules, it would have been relegated to some agricultural league years ago.

A retired accountant, who supported the club and was made chief financial officer not so long ago, came in for a big surprise when he looked at Apoel’s accounts. There was a category in the books titled ‘Bad Creditors’ and having never encountered such an accounting term in his career, he asked one of the staff what it meant.

He was told it referred to creditors that the club had no intention of paying. Makis, presumably an Apoel supporter, would be pleased to know that the Social Insurance Fund, the VAT service and Inland Revenue were not included in the list of ‘bad creditors.’ The club knew that Makis would arrange for the taxpayer to settle its €11.6m tax dues.

Sadly, for the bad creditors Makis’ law had no provision for the taxpayer to settle Apoel’s remaining €30m debt.

FORMER footballer Costas Malekkos landed himself in a bit of a pickle when expressing his neanderthal opinion about women on a television interview, broadcast last Sunday.

He had said that women “have to accept that the man is in charge” and that “he is allowed to do whatever he wants.” He also told women that “men are men, end of,” and that “when your husband is not a man at home you will divorce him.”

Women were outraged by this advertisement of Malekkos’ unenviable IQ and issued indignant statements, but the feminists of Akel’s women’s wing Pogo went a step further. They pogoed Malekkos to the police for violating ‘The combating of sexism and online sexism for related matters law’ of 2020, and the police said an investigation would be carried out.

Trust the commie Pogoitisses to support the suppression of freedom of expression and wanting a man prosecuted for exercising this right to free speech. Meanwhile the Single Parents’ Association informed us that “divorced women are not prostitutes” as if Malekkos said they were.

I will just have to wait for the police investigation to be completed before I write about women drivers that I was planning to do today.

AKEL’S attempt to tax the windfall profits of the banks was narrowly defeated in the House on Thursday because the vote was tied and there is no provision in House rules for a penalty shoot-out. In the run-up the comrades smartly presented the choice for deputies as being between society and the banks.

The next day, Akel’s mouthpiece Haravghi, named and shamed those that sided with the banks, its banner headline informing readers that “Disy, Diko, Dipa and Volt snubbed society.”

Diko and Dipa had instructions from the presidential palace to oppose the bill, and even Prez Niktwo took a stand against society, describing the bill as “a dangerous approach.”

The tax would have raised €100m over two years, for the solidarity fund and the money would have been used for housing projects. If money went to the football clubs there would have been a better chance of the bill being approved.

IT DID not take long for the saintly Odysseas to embark on his campaign for the 2028 presidential elections. He did this at a gathering of the Green Party, at which he was a guest speaker with his equally humorless sidekick, former attorney-general Costas Clerides.

“Today which is the international day against corruption, I call on all of you to mobilise in an unyielding struggle for another Cyprus, for all of us to become the voice of justice for the Cyprus that children deserve. No to Cyprus of laziness and greed,” he told the audience, in a speech his official cheerleader Phil, described as “thrilling.”

His cheerleader-in-chief, Phil columnist Kallinikou, wet his pants over the speech, saying “he declared war on corruption and opened a window of hope.”

It was a presidential candidate’s speech – he also shed a tear about the impoverishment of the middle class – and his intention was confirmed in an interview on CyBC television when he said that he was thinking positively about the prospect of being a candidate in 2028. There was a need for a change of government as “the country is in the gutter,” he said.

I hope he has more success with his unyielding struggle than Makarios had with the one he declared 50 years ago and turned the north of Kyproulla into a province of Turkey.

Once Britain recognised our important role in the region, the prez had no choice but to forgive all its past transgressions and turn the page in relations

AFTER the United States, Prezniktwo has also jumped into bed with the conspiratorial, duplicitous, back-stabbing, Turk-loving Britain, welcoming Prime Minister Keir Starmer to Cyprus on Tuesday and announcing that the first visit of British PM in 53 years “speaks for itself.”

The Prez officially declared an end to Kyproulla’s policy of unrelenting Brit-bashing. “I would like to refer to the conclusion of our discussion, which was our decision to turn page in Britain’s relations with the Republic of Cyprus, to work together on a significant number of issues.”

They decided to work together in the region, he said adding: “It is important that Britain recognises this role that our country plays in the region, by maintaining excellent relations with all neighbouring states.”

Once Britain recognised our important role in the region, the prez had no choice but to forgive all its past transgressions and turn the page in relations. Like the US, Britain has secured a valuable ally in the region, especially now that our Prez will transform Kyproulla from a consumer to producer of defence products.

HIS PLANS for a defence industry were no joke. “I am announcing a series of targeted measures to further support and strengthen, in action and not just words, our defence industry,” he said, addressing an international defence and security conference.

To further support and strengthen the defence industry, surely you have to have one and I am pretty sure we do not. Nevertheless, the aim, according to the Prez, “is to transform our defence industry, positioning Cyprus as a hub for advanced defence technologies and to empower our country to provide a meaningful and valuable contribution to Europe’s collective security framework.”

The key is that all this will be done, “not just in words.”