Cyprus soccer eyes reunion after 60-year divorce

Turkish Cypriot soccer officials on Monday vowed to press ahead with attempts to reunite with the Cyprus Football Association, (CFA), triggering a political storm on the ethnically-split island.

In a controversy running to the heart of the highly-charged division of Cyprus, the Cyprus Turkish Football Association (CTFA) told soccer governing body FIFA on Monday they had launched a process to eventually become a member of the Greek Cypriot CFA.

A senior Turkish Cypriot official blasted the move ?suicide? for the future of soccer in the isolated Turkish Cypriot breakaway state and urged the association to reconsider.

But CTFA president Hasan Sertoglu told a news conference on the Turkish side of Nicosia, Cyprus?s partitioned capital, they were forging ahead with their reforms.

?Today an era in Turkish Cypriot football is closing, and we are doing what we believe is right,? he said.

Turkish Cypriot sports minister Serdar Denktash was quoted in local media on Monday as describing the move ?outrageous.? He threatened to cut funding to soccer clubs if they went ahead, media reported.

But Sertoglu responded: ?This is not a one-man show. I have the full support of the (CTFA) executive committee.?

?This is not a political issue, we are doing this for the future of our youth,? he said, referring to the present isolation of Turkish Cypriot soccer.

Ethnic Greeks and Turks have lived separately for decades with the football authorities splitting in 1954 and Turkey invading the island 20 years later.

The Turkish Cypriot breakaway state is recognized only by Ankara, while a Greek Cypriot government effectively runs only the south and is internationally recognized as the sole legal authority on the island.

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