Cyprus to host ‘high risk’ game with Turkey’s Trabzonspor

The Cyprus football federation (KOP) has rated next Wednesday’s Champions League second round match with a Turkish team as a ‘high risk’ game, with additional security measures.

Anorthosis F.C., a refugee team from the Turkish occupied town of Famagusta, beat Dynamo Minsk in the first round on Wednesday night and qualified for the next round where it will meet Turkey’s Trabzonspor.

KOP officials said that a UEFA expert will be arriving on the island on Sunday to oversee the security operations that will see the capital’s GSP stadium limiting ticket sales to 17,500 from its 25,000 capacity.

A further 1,200 seats have been allocated to Trabsonspor with fans showing a willingness to visit the island and enter from Larnaca airport and stay at a Greek Cypriot hotel in Nicosia.

A number of Turkish Cypriots are also expected to cross to the south through the four checkpoints along the dividing ‘Green Line’ where passage was eased in April 2003, from where, however, Turks living in the north or settled there under military protection, cannot cross.