Vassos Koutsiountas, General Director of the KOA, made statements on “SPOR FM 95.0.”
He began by discussing the plans to upgrade the “AEK Arena” and emphasized that it will cost 8 million euros, with the government providing a 4-million-euro grant—though we should note that AEK had requested 6.
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He then emphasized that there have been no developments regarding the privately owned stadiums of APOEL and Omonia.
His statements
Regarding the upgrade of the “AEK Arena”: “AEK submitted a request to upgrade the stadium to UEFA Category 4 standards; this is positive for our organization. We will schedule a meeting with AEK to explain the next steps to them. The upgrade will cost around 8 million, and the government may subsidize up to 4 million. In order for the government to provide this grant, we must present a sound plan and determine how we can move forward to carry out this important project. It will take about a month to prepare AEK’s application; we’ll send it to the Ministry of Finance via the Ministry of Education, and we’re talking about something that might happen in 2027— certainly not this year. It’s worth noting that public tenders will be required, which are time-consuming; we’ll need tender documents, but we’ll try to keep the process from taking too long. I believe that financing will be the easy part—the question is when; what’s important are the other stages I mentioned earlier.”
Regarding state funding for stadiums: “For each component of a stadium, we have maximum amounts that we will fund and the percentage we will cover. Don’t forget that Omonia and APOEL want to build their own stadiums; you can understand that they will want state funding.”
Regarding the APOEL and Omonia stadiums: “As for the Omonia stadium, I’m not aware of anything. As for APOEL, there’s nothing new so far.”
Regarding stadium permits: “A letter will be sent today to the clubs asking for an update from the teams, so we don’t leave it to the last minute. We’ll ask each stadium what it has done and what it still needs to do.”
What happens once the measures are implemented: “The next milestone will be for each stadium to prepare the terms of the call for bids to hire the engineers and contractors needed to complete the remaining work, and we have set a deadline of the end of November for the calls for bids. The operating permits for the stages are valid until the end of January. We are ready to help everyone, but everyone must fulfill their responsibilities; including the KOA regarding the “Stelios Kyriakidis” stadium, so that we can ensure the smooth running of the league.”
Regarding who is interested in the “Stelios Kyriakidis” stadium: “We have a written offer from a second interested party in addition to Paphos.”
