The banner unfurled at the basketball match between Greek club Panathinaikos and Israeli outfit Maccabi Tel Aviv in Nicosia reading 50 years of illegal occupation, no one forgets “reflects a sad reality”, Cyprus Basketball Federation chairman Andreas Mouzourides said on Tuesday.
The banner had upset Panathinaikos’ head coach Ergin Ataman, who is from Turkey. Ataman demanded to be ejected from the court when the banner was unfurled, before expressing his surprise at the banner in a social media post on Tuesday.
“Yesterday in the arena, where sports and friendship should prevail, a political banner was displayed by a small group that I did not find fitting for the hospitality we have experienced here. I expressed my reaction to this situation in the strongest way possible to draw attention to it,” he said.
Mouzourides said he “agrees with the sentiment … that sports and friendship must always win and that sports can unite people”, though was keen to make clear that “the message of this particular banner touches all Cypriots and Greeks, and there is no one who disagrees with the essence of the message.”
“The banner had a clear message of condemnation of the 50 years of occupation, which expresses all of us. Now, whether sport is the right place to express these messages or whether it should act as a bridge of communication is a matter for discussion,” he added.
The banner at the exhibition match also drew condemnation from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s chief foreign policy advisor Akif Cagatay Kilic, who called on “international sports and basketball authorities to take action against this political and immoral propaganda.”
“I congratulate [Ataman] for his reaction to the banner, which was not befitting of the ethics of sports,” he said.
Later on Tuesday, Ataman told Turkish news agency Demiroren that Panathinaikos’ upper management is “very angry about this situation”, and that the club’s Gate 13 fan group in Athens had telephoned him to apologise for the banner.
He had said in the same social media post that he had been “warmly welcomed at the airport” upon his and his team’s arrival in Cyprus and that “the atmosphere of friendship and peace was very promising for all of us.”
