The government and the Cyprus Football Association (CFA) clashed on Monday over who is to blame after the CFA had informed European football governing body Uefa that all of Cyprus’ football clubs are financially compliant with its criteria despite five of them not meeting their tax obligations as set out in their repayment plan.

Data on the state of football clubs’ tax debt repayments were submitted by the finance ministry to the CFA on Monday, with five clubs having not met their tax debt repayment obligations and seven not having met their obligations with regard to their repayment of debt to the social insurance fund.

However, the CFA said it had already gone ahead and informed Uefa that all clubs were compliant as it had received no information to the contrary by the deadline of 1pm last Friday which it had set.

This deadline, as CFA vice chairman Nick Nicolaou told the House finance committee on Monday, was set because while the CFA has until this coming Saturday to inform Uefa of financial transgressions, clubs were to be given five days to appeal in the event that they were found to be non-compliant.

Non-compliance would see the indebted clubs unable to compete in Uefa’s three European competitions next season and could also entail transfer embargoes and points deductions in Cyprus’ domestic league.

The prospect of deductions of up to six points at the start of next season had been suggested, with Ethnikos Achnas and Limassol giants Ael having only finished five points above the relegation zone this season.

“If we had the data from the finance ministry earlier, we would not have the current situation,” Nicolaou told the committee.

However, the finance ministry’s permanent secretary Andreas Zachariades was of the opposite opinion, telling the committee that the CFA was well aware of the fact that his ministry’s data would be submitted on Monday.

“Thus, even though they knew inside the CFA that the data would come on Monday, they announced on Friday that everything was going well with the clubs and that they could participate in European competitions,” he said.

“We feel deceived, just like you,” he told MPs.

Zachariades sought to blame the CFA for the cock-up. He said that on May 15 the football association had sent a letter to the finance ministry asking for the data on the clubs’ tax compliance. That letter never mentioned a deadline for a response. Then on May 20 the CFA sent a new letter, informing the ministry that the deadline was on the following day.

The official said that of the five clubs with tax arrears, only one complied with the terms of the debt repayment plan. Moreover, there is no way to reintegrate the four wayward clubs into the scheme – unless the cabinet makes a separate decision.

Parliamentarians were less than impressed by the sequence of events, with acting committee chairman and Disy MP Chrysis Pantelides saying that “obviously, in one way or another, the Uefa barrier is being overcome, but we are losing our leverage”.

Pantelides accused the government of “taking Uefa for a ride” and of “abetting bad operators [in football] so that they can prance about in the grandstands”.

Akel MP Aristos Damianou remarked that “we have before us blatant political match-fixing”.

Green party leader Stavros Papadouris pointed out that the information the CFA had provided to Uefa had been at least in part based on internal audits carried out by the clubs themselves and raised the issue of the credibility of auditors who had found clubs to be compliant with tax repayments while the finance ministry’s figures suggested otherwise.

He said the auditors may be “called to give explanations before the committee”.

The finance ministry’s report found that while five clubs were non-compliant with the repayment plans, ten clubs were compliant, with tax commissioner Sotiris Markides asked about clubs’ future prospects at the committee meeting.

He told the committee that the reinstatement into the government’s instalment plan of clubs which had fallen out of it is not a decision taken by the tax department, but one which will be taken by cabinet in time.

“My position on their reinstatement into the plan is the same as what I would say about any taxpayer. If they pay almost 50 per cent [of their outstanding tax debts accrued since 2023], they could be reinstated with strict monitoring – with nothing but strict monitoring and without any ease, mind, as society requires that it be closely monitored,” he said.

The figure of 50 per cent was the target set by the government earlier this year for five football clubs – Ael, Apoel, Apollon, Anorthosis, and Ethnikos Achna – to be reinstated into the tax repayment scheme set up by Finance Minister Makis Keravnos in 2023, which foresees that all debts will be paid by June 2037.

None of those five clubs qualified for European competitions this season.

The tax commissioner said that, in his personal opinion, the five wayward clubs had fallen foul of the debt repayment scheme as far back as November 2024.

But the clubs were granted another extension, until the end of 2024. Again they did not meet their obligations under the scheme. Then in February this year, Markides said, he got verbal instructions from the finance ministry to give the clubs one last chance – by the end of March.