AEL - Big game today!

[Superphil]

why is it that APOEL fans all wear orange when their colours are blue and yellow, is it just orange clothing or is it club branded.

To a degree it's both, although the 'ultras' have their own products, their organisations are sponsored by other companies, I have an APOEL orange t shirt, official merchandise of the fans , sponsored by Fanta ( owned by Coca Cola) . They have their own supporters club/bar/restaurant/HQ in Nicosia that is regularly attacked by oppo fans, in fact I think it was gutted last year pending a rebuild. as fans in the ground they are amazing, outside the ground they are atrocious.

 

[Bridcutt]

This doesn't have much to do with this, but, I'm half greek so I'm kinda into Greek football, I like Panathinaikos
I remember supporting APOEL Nicosia in the CL this season ! Got into the semis haha

 

[fork me]

To a degree it's both, although the 'ultras' have their own products, their organisations are sponsored by other companies, I have an APOEL orange t shirt, official merchandise of the fans , sponsored by Fanta ( owned by Coca Cola) . They have their own supporters club/bar/restaurant/HQ in Nicosia that is regularly attacked by oppo fans, in fact I think it was gutted last year pending a rebuild. as fans in the ground they are amazing, outside the ground they are atrocious.

Omonia fans mattacked the APOEL clubhouse and daubed it in paint saying "f*** Your Nation" in Greek. There have been some very disturbing incidents outside grounds, and inside from some, but it's still a minority of fans that do these things.

I'll give some of the worst examples aside from the one already mentioned:

Referees are regularly threatened with their lives (and even their families lives), a few years ago the Apollon keeper was dragged out of a Starbucks and beaten by his own fans for having a poor season. Omonia fans have turned up to both games against APOEL (who are staunch nationalists) and Anorthosis (a club which was based in Famagusta but was exiled by the Turkish invasion) with Turkish flags with the intention of sparking riots. There have been numerous running battles in the streets, especially in Nicosia. The downside of football here is that it's where football was in the UK in the early to mid 80,s, but with added Italian style fanaticism. Of the four clubs in the play offs this year, only AEL played all three of their home games with fans present APOEL, Omonia and Anorthosis ALL had to play at least one of their games behind closed doors (APOEL, all three) because of crowd violence.

We're not the onlt countryn with these problems though, an Italian friend of mine is a Latina fan, they smashed up all their players cars earlier this season in the car park after an away game because they were unhappy with their performance.

 

[Superphil]

What I am confused by is why UEFA don't remove them from European competitions as punishment, as English teams were in the 1980s due to the behaviour of a number of English teams fans. Dispite the fact CY fans behave like they do, I'm sure some tangible sanctions that affect both the clubs and fans would make a start to dealing with the problem.