Address by General Secretary of the Central Committee of AKEL S.Stefanou at the event to celebrate the 74th anniversary of NEA SALAMINA Football and Sports Club

 

9 March 2022, AKEL C.C. Press Office, Nicosia

NEA SALAMINA, like other clubs founded in that same period of 1948, is the birth and result of the imposition of the petty policies of exclusion of athletes from sports arena purely for their ideological position and beliefs.

At the same time, NEA SALAMINA is the result of progressive thinking and creative action. The thought and action that wants playing fields open and accessible to all.

The kind of thinking that is open and welcoming to the people all the time and not at all petty, vindictive and resentful.

The kind of thinking that is based on ideals that are timeless and universal – the ideals that have at their heart People, Solidarity, Fraternity.

NEA SALAMINA was born from the common people, for the common people.

And it is precisely for all this that the elites and the establishment constantly attacked NEA SALAMINA. It was attacked by the circles that want sports to be part of their immoral games serving petty political and club expediencies and considerations, serving selfish interests and profit.

Difficulties have always accompanied NEA SALAMINA. But its officials and members have never abandoned their efforts and bastion of struggle. They have not forgotten its roots.

And since 1974, during the period when NEA SALAMINA was displaced and forced to take the path of other refugees too, it has been holding high the flag of the return to its home and stadium in occupied Famagusta.

Some people wonder why refugee clubs still exist, after so many years since the 1974 invasion. And ultimately they wonder who supports them, since the generations who formed these refugee clubs from occupied areas and played and lived in their stadiums/grounds are slowly one by one passing away.

The answer is simple! The refugee clubs, especially the refugee clubs with a mass base, are the roots, the memories, the genetic code of all those people who were uprooted as refugees and have lived for so many decades in anticipation of the return to their homes and properties.

But it is also the flame that keeps the memory unquenched, the flame that is passed down from generation to generation, the one that grandparents talk about to their grandchildren, parents to their children. So for the people of Varosha, NEA SALAMINA is both a starting point and a destination.

Defying time that is fading memories.

Stubbornly resisting and defying those who believe that the struggle for reunification is futile.

Some may have decided that we cannot expect a solution of the Cyprus problem or, worse still, they may have decided that partition supposedly suits us and are even negotiating it behind closed doors, but we stand firmly against these perceptions.

We are continuing the struggle for reunification even more resolutely.

We continue to struggle to keep the prospect of a solution alive. The prospect of returning back to our towns and villages. To return to Famagusta, where Turkey is attempting to create new serious fait accompli on the ground, violating the relevant Resolutions of the United Nations, which further aggravate the prospect of a solution.

Dear friends,

NEA SALAMINA is a club that promotes “fair play”. Not only in football, but in all the sports it has at times cultivated and is still cultivating. In volleyball, athletics and elsewhere, NEA SALAMINA has a rich history. It is this history and the ideal of “fair play” that we wanted to honor as AKEL when we decided that the Award for Services to Sports awarded every year by the Central Committee of our Party would bear the name of Nikis Giorgiou, alongside and together with that of Kostas Limbouris. Nikis Georgiou was a pioneer of Cypriot sports, a champion and fighter who, by the example of his life, proved that despite all the problems, there are always solutions for society and the people.

It is precisely because we believe in “fair play” that as a Party we have submitted many times specific proposals for the development of sports in our country and for the consolidation of sports structures. AKEL believes in developing sports with transparency and accountability. Especially in football, which is the most mass and most competitive sport and in which there are very powerful financial interests involved.

The word NEA SALAMINA means a handful of land in the middle of sea water. Our small country has given birth to many stories of combativeness and militant spirit, of determination, many stories where the weak have stood up and changed things. This is how the story of NEA SALAMINA began, a story stretching 74 years, so old but so topical and timely, so vigorous and dynamic.

I wish many successes in the continuation of this course and that the next great anniversary, the great celebration, will be held there, in the very cradle of NEA SALAMINA, in the fenced off area of Varosha in occupied Famagusta…