Football fans have broken into the fenced archaeological site of the ancient Kition harbour in Larnaca and spray-painted slogans across a large wall, in the latest episode of a graffiti problem the city’s mayor says has spiralled out of control.
The vandalism follows a pattern stretching back at least two years, when Anorthosis supporters painted slogans on palm trees along the Athens Avenue seafront. Supporters linked to AEK have since gone further, targeting Kilkis Street near the Larnaca Archaeological Museum, where they vandalised palm trees in front of a monument honouring Savvas Kyriakou, killed by Turkish forces in 1974, as well as recycling bins and traffic signs on a nearby roundabout. They then broke into the Kition site and spray-painted a large wall. The extent of the graffiti suggests the work took place over several days without interruption, according to the report.
Fan groups linked to both AEK and Anorthosis have targeted public spaces across Larnaca, including parks, residential walls and traffic signage throughout the city.
Larnaca Mayor Andreas Vyras told Phileleftheros the problem had reached unacceptable levels. “One of the biggest problems we have is graffiti from organised fan groups. They have reached unacceptable levels and we are thinking about what to do. It is not just this particular site. It is all over the city — they respect nothing,” he said.
Vyras said the issue had been raised repeatedly with police and that a meeting with the clubs themselves was being planned. He is also considering increasing the spectator tax on clubs to fund a permanent clean-up crew. “We are thinking of various measures, such as increasing the spectator tax on the clubs so we can set up a permanent team to clean up the graffiti. We would also like a special police unit to be set up to arrest people carrying out these acts,” he said.
The municipality currently needs four to five permanent workers just to keep up with the graffiti, the mayor said, with crews erasing slogans only to find them rewritten the following day. “We are talking about permanent fan groups that go around the city writing slogans. It is as if we did nothing — they do it deliberately. Our effort is wasted,” he said. The annual cost runs to many thousands of euros, he added.
