Can football loosen the ‘Gordian Knot’ in Cyprus?

Abstract

The sports literature has shown that sport can be used as an instrument for reuniting ethnically and religiously divided societies. The Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot communities in the island of Cyprus have been brutishly separated as a result of Turkey’s invasion in 1974 and a subsequent proclamation of the occupied land as an independent state. Because of the latter, the Turkish-Cypriots have been facing political exclusion, such as being denied participation in international football matches. Their ‘independence’ has detached them from the Cyprus Football Association, which remains the sole representative of Cypriot football in international governing bodies. The two sides have attempted unsuccessfully to resolve the problem, which has political extensions, and the question remains whether football can indeed loosen that ‘Gordian Knot’. Placing the problem within an international relations framework and based on digital media reports and secondary analyses, this paper includes elements of three levels of analysis and argues that for the time being there are very dim hopes that football can act as a re-unifying agent in the divided society of Cyprus.

Keywords:

• Cyprus
• sport politics
• international relations

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to the editor-in-chief, Professor Barrie Houlihan, whose encouragement and suggestions were a catalyst in putting this piece of research together. I also thank two anonymous reviewers of the journal who provided very constructive comments on the originally submitted draft. Language editorials were carried out by FirstEditing.com. Any remaining errors are mine.

Notes

1. Such initiatives may be purely their own following consultation with the interested parties but covert contacts with international institutions or powers cannot be ruled out.

2. Validity refers to whether the findings accurately reflect the situation and are supported by the evidence. Internal validity is concerned with whether the investigation claimed is indeed that, while external validity exists when the investigation can be applicable to other groups. The latter is often referred to as reliability.

3. According to FIFA (2011) status No 10 Admission: ‘Any Association which is responsible for organising and supervising football in its country may become a Member of FIFA. In this context, the expression “country” shall refer to an independent state recognised by the international community’.

4. This information was originally accessed online on 9 September 2012 from Logos, a Greek blog site: https://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.greek/tree/browse_frm/month/1996-04/ab2ae5f9ede84e18?rnum=161&_done=%2Fgroup%2Fsoc.culture.greek%2Fbrowse_frm%2Fmonth%2F1996-04%3Ffwc%3D1%26. However, it was no longer traceable online in October 2013.

5. Originally accessed online on 9 September 2012 from www.typos.com.cy/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=32829. Currently available only from the newspaper’s offline archives in Greek through Mr. Andrew Rolandis; [email protected].

6. Currently, the 50 seats of the TRNC ‘parliament’ are distributed as follows: Republican Turkish Party (CTP 21), National Unity Party (UBP 14), Democratic Party (DP 12), Communal Democracy Party (TDP 3).