Elam urges Real Madrid to cancel youth football camp in Kyrenia

Elam on Friday called on Real Madrid to cancel a youth football camp planned for the occupied north, months after Barcelona withdrew from a similar event following Greek Cypriot complaints earlier this year. The camp is scheduled for November 14 at the Acapulco hotel in Ayios Epiktitos, according to an announcement by the youth strength academy. Young players from the academy are due to face a team from Real Madrid’s Turkish foundation football programme in a friendly match. Elam decried the event as “unacceptable” and asked Real Madrid’s central administration in Spain to call it off. Related Articles • Erhurman: Guterres said Barcelona camp cancellation was ‘discouraging’ • Confidence-building measures ‘need to be implemented’, Holguin says • Complaints over Barcelona camp, festival cancellations ‘noted’ by EU, Erhurman says • Barcelona cancels football camp in north • Letymbiotis on Barcelona camp: We are doing exactly what a recognised state should The party claimed that such moves serve, “intentionally or not, the effort to legitimise the fait accompli of the invasion and the continuing occupation”. It also urged the Republic to take the necessary action, concluding that there be “no event in bloodstained occupied territories”. Real Madrid said the foundation’s programme in Turkey operates in cooperation with Be Free Football and Regnum Hotels. Barcelona camp cancelled in August Barcelona cancelled a two-week children’s camp in August that was to be held at the Near East University campus in Ortakoy. Days earlier, football association chairman Charis Loizides had written to his Spanish counterpart Rafael Louzan urging him to discourage Barcelona from organising the camp. The cancellation drew condemnation from Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman, who wrote to both the EU and the UN on August 28. He said on October 18 that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had replied that such developments were “discouraging” and contradicted his calls for steps to strengthen trust between the two sides. Erhurman said earlier that attempting to stop children playing football was “clearly a defeat for all people and humanity”. Government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis took a different view, remarking that the Republic was doing “exactly what an internationally recognised state should do”. He insisted that it was not pressuring international organisations to cancel events, and that it was using diplomacy to present “the real state of affairs”.