The President of Onisilos, Georgios Solomou, has been resigning since last Monday, citing reasons of personal nature as well as financial difficulties of the Association, which so far is unable to cope with the salaries paid to the Footballers and its staff. But what are the problems that Onisilos faces?… Onisilos is currently in a very difficult time struggling to cope with the financial adversity, which came from the cuts in sponsorships from the Cyprus Football Federation, but also from the inability of the people to offer money to a team that is struggling to remains in Category B.
This year's budget of Onisilos moved to lower levels than last year, with less than € 200.000, while other teams in Division B have a budget of more than half a million euros. Onisilos is also one of the few teams in Cypriot football that does not maintain creditors, ie debts to individuals, in addition to the players and staff for this season. This became possible when last summer, Giorgos Takkas (current mayor Sotiras), Takis Papageorgiou (director of the company Joanni Marmi) and the contractor Giannakis Anastasiou, mortgaged their personal land to SPE Sotiras, in order to grant a loan to Sotira. to cover all debts without exception until 2011. The loan will be repaid from the annual sponsorship of € 60.000 that normally entered the funds of Onisilos.
Therefore, a very large part of the annual sponsorship from SPE Sotiras to the Association is cut, while a different cut was made by the KOP, which this year did not send the annual sponsorship for the Associations of the XNUMXnd Category. The reactions of the Clubs from the beginning of the Football Season were fruitless.
The problem of low attendance at the stadium for the team's matches also remains big. On average, every weekend 100-200 people come to the Municipal Stadium, which means that the income amounts to € 1000- € 2000 while the expenses every weekend for the referees of all the teams (U-13, U-15, U-17, U-21 and Men's Team) amount to € 2500- € 3000, thus creating debts and not income for the Association.
Also, the "financial crisis" - perhaps a good excuse for many - has led to the indifference of sponsors to contribute to a team, while the only sponsorship is that of Cytavision and television broadcasts. On the other hand, individuals who promised sums of money at this year's Kolokassi Festival, are unable (or indifferent) so far to pay their sums.
Finally, there is indifference in the level of participation of people in the events of the Association, since the Board of Directors, today consists of 5 people, who, of course, can not cope with the huge volume of daily obligations that a team has.
The wronged from the whole case are of course the staff and the footballers of the Association, who despite the superhuman struggle they gave to raise the team just before the door of the ascending four, remain unpaid for almost 4 whole months and unfortunately are the first to accept fire for a possible team failure.
To all this, the completely failed selection of Gosho Petkov to take over the technical post of the team, after almost leading it to the degradation, while the arrival of Michalis Stylianos, who cost almost half the money, brought new breath in the team, making it competitive in the XNUMXnd Division.
Onisilos' problems are many. The biggest problem, however, is the indifference that exists in Sotira for the team, which represents our Municipality very well. On the other hand, many times the party expediencies but also the personal ambitions, make Onisilos a victim of exploitation. Fortunately in Sotira, after the unification in 1978 of the Youth Center and Onisilos, there is no, nor do we hope there will ever be a second Football team, which will divide Sotira in half creating party rivalries and enmities between the inhabitants. Onisilos is one, he is colorless and belongs to the Savior. We must all finally understand this and contribute in our own way to his salvation and survival.
SotiraNews.com