APOEL, Apollon, Anorthosis, and Ethnikos Achnas are under strict scrutiny from the Tax Department for their compliance with tax obligations. Following an ultimatum from the state and their reintegration into a tax debt payment plan, the competent tax authority in Cyprus is waiting for them to fulfill their commitments.
The four clubs have been regularly paying their July installments, and Tax Department officials are waiting to see if they will also comply this month. The total long-standing tax debt of the four clubs amounts to €19.8 million, a sum that exceeds 50% of the total football clubs’ debt, considering that 15 football companies owe the state a total of more than €30 million.
The Commissioner of Taxation, Sotiris Markides, made it clear both in person and in individual meetings with the leaders of all the clubs that in cases of non-compliance, he will take the necessary actions, including collection and legal measures. This includes filing charges against current and former administrative and senior officials of the teams. Based on the 2023 plan and the arrangements made, all clubs will fully pay off their taxes by 2037, although some have already done so.
Payment Plans and Counter-Proposals
Phileleftheros reveals the repayment plans for the tax debts of APOEL, Apollon, Anorthosis, and Ethnikos Achnas, which led the Tax Commissioner to reintegrate them into the government’s installment plan. We present the proposed arrangements of the four football teams, as well as the Tax Commissioner’s position on their re-inclusion in the plan.
APOEL
APOEL, which has a total tax debt of €11.6 million, pays a monthly installment of €75,000. Specifically, at the beginning of the year, its outstanding debts were €1.8 million. Its settlement proposal was as follows: So far, it has paid €700,000 by check, and by the end of September, it will pay another €200,000 (a total of €900,000). According to the letter sent by the Tax Commissioner to the Minister of Finance, Makis Keravnos, dated May 5, with the payment of the €200,000 by October 1, the repayment percentage of the outstanding debts will reach 48%.
“Given that it is making clearly serious efforts to comply with its obligations, and that processes are underway to revise its mode of operation, make changes to its budget management, and reshuffle the board of directors, I recommend its re-inclusion in the 2023 plan with a readjusted installment amount based on the remaining installments,” the Commissioner stated.
Apollon
Apollon’s repayment plan for its outstanding tax debts of €1.3 million was as follows: It immediately paid €150,000, and by the end of April, it had paid another €350,000. It has also committed to paying another €200,000 by September 1, and the remaining amount will be included in the monthly installments of the 2023 tax repayment plan. Last May, the Tax Commissioner expressed the view that the company had paid €500,000 and planned to pay another €200,000 by September 1. “Therefore, the repayment percentage of the outstanding debts will reach 53%, and given that it is making serious efforts to comply with its obligations, I recommend its re-inclusion in the 2023 plan with a readjusted installment amount based on the remaining installments,” Mr. Markides underlined. It is worth noting that Apollon’s total tax debt is €3.8 million, with a monthly payment of €26,000.
Anorthosis
Anorthosis’s proposal concerned the gradual settlement of a total tax debt of €3.2 million. Its outstanding payments at the beginning of the year were €650,000. The monthly installment is €22,000. Specifically, Anorthosis had proposed the immediate payment of €200,000 (via a payment of €75,363, an amount of €49,636 from the Cyprus Sports Organisation, and €75,000—an amount that the President of the Republic had promised to the club as a birthday gift last January). It has also committed to paying €200,000 by the end of August and for the rest of the overdue installments to be added to the remaining installments and paid off gradually. For his part, the Tax Commissioner had stated that Anorthosis had paid €125,000, that the €75,000 gifted by the President of the Republic was awaited, and that it would pay another €200,000 by the end of the month. “By September 1, the repayment percentage will reach 62% of the outstanding debts, and because it is making serious efforts to comply with its obligations,” the Commissioner noted. He also added that the new board of directors took over last October.
Ethnikos Achnas
Regarding Ethnikos Achnas, it has accumulated outstanding debts of €101,000, while its total tax debt amounts to €1.2 million. With its re-inclusion in the plan, it pays an installment of €8,000 a month. In its proposal last April, Ethnikos stated that it was unable to pay its outstanding debts. It is also a refugee club with limited resources, and when it joined the 2023 plan, it had paid all its installments. It had also proposed that the VAT debt be divided into the 147 remaining installments, with a monthly installment increase of €700 to be able to cope. The Tax Commissioner, for his part, had recommended that the team be re-included in the 2023 plan because it had complied with the payment of installments and because it is a refugee and border community club with financial problems that also provides social work in the Achna area. At the same time, he had argued that the amount owed is very small compared to the total outstanding debts of the companies.
Based on the correspondence between the Ministry of Finance, the Tax Department, and the Cyprus Football Association (CFA), the football companies that are tax-compliant are: Pafos FC, Omonia Nicosia, AEK, ARIS, Enosis Neon Paralimni, Olympiacos, Akritas Chlorakas, Enosis Neon Ypsonas, Omonia Aradippou, and AEL.
Social Security Debts Prove More Difficult
The biggest problem does not seem to be the tax debts but the debts to Social Security, which reach €12 million. This is because there is no possibility for debtors to be included in a regulation for overdue social contributions and, therefore, they must pay off their debts immediately.
As revealed by Phileleftheros, 18 companies/clubs had not settled their debts and were not included in any plan. Also, eight clubs had settled their debts with the Social Security Fund, and only one of them, namely Ethnikos Achnas, is part of the overdue social contributions plan.
Based on the data submitted to the House of Representatives, APOEL has overdue debts of €5.4 million to the Social Security Fund, Apollon €2.86 million, AEL (company and club) €963,000, Anorthosis €1.11 million, Athletiko Laiko Somateio Omonia 1948 has debts of €57,674, Omonia Aradippou €33,466, Othellos Athienou €120,137, AEZ €182,253, DOXA Katokopias THOI €205,802, Olympiacos €23,131, PAEEK €13,193, and Ermis €66,000. It is recalled that current and former board members of APOEL and Anorthosis have already been criminally prosecuted and brought to justice.