Giorgos Koumas, the controversy-ridden head of the Cyprus Football Association (CFA) announced on Tuesday that he will step down in order to ‘protect’ the sport.

Koumas will quit well ahead of completing his second term as CFA boss. His second consecutive term would have expired in 2027.

In a statement, Koumas said that “after mature thought…I feel this is the right time to step down.”

His decision, he added, is related to the fact that “I have become a target and, with me, the CFA and Cyprus football in general have also become targets.

“By leaving, I want to protect the sport. The sport must stop being attacked because of me. And above all, football should be left out of personal attacks and conflicts.”

He will, however, retain his positions in Fifa and Uefa.

“As chairman of the CFA”, he went on, “I did my utmost for the good of football and of my country.”

Koumas joined the CFA some 20 years ago. In 2007 he became acting chairman. He took over the top post in March 2018, following the death of then-chairman Costakis Koutsokoumnis. He was re-elected in 2023, after 15 of the 17 clubs voted for him.

Along with others, the departing football boss is the subject of a criminal investigation.

In late 2023 the attorney-general had ordered an independent criminal investigator to carry out a probe into suspicious activities by CFA officials – primarily Koumas.

This was on the back of a report done by the sports ethics committee, which had determined that Koumas had a “competing interest”.

The ethics committee had investigated suspected manipulation of sports events as well as other suspected offences.

Media reports at the time said Koumas was suspected of having created an “unfair advantage” for some football clubs by way of manipulating the money paid to them as part of television rights deals.

This included the allegation that money paid to the football association by CytaVision for television rights to domestic Cypriot football matches “was distributed by the CFA, in time and quantity, according to the will of Giorgos Koumas”.