By Andrew Warshaw, Chief Correspondent
January 21 – The FIFA intermediary who helped broker last week’s breakthrough re-unification talks between Greek and Turkish Cypriot football officials believes there is enough goodwill on both sides to bring about an historic deal.
Primo Corvaro, head of FIFA member associations and one of the organisation’s main global troubleshooters, was a key participant at the landmark meeting staged at the headquarters of the Turkish Cypriot Football Association.
At present, only the Cyprus Football Association, on the Greek Cypriot south of the island, is recognised by FIFA and UEFA, with the Turkish Cypriots languishing in isolation since setting up their own body in 1955.
Efforts to re-unify the island since the 1974 Turkish military intervention have stalled repeatedly and the football authorities have now come together to try and succeed where the politicians have failed.
Last week a draft agreement was reached in principle between the two federations though several key differences have to be hammered out, not least the Turkish Cypriots’ reluctance to accept the authority of the Cyprus FA, a necessary precondition since FIFA applies a strict “one country, one federation” policy.
Both sides have now agreed to meet with FIFA in March and Corvaro, who was joined at last week’s Nicosia talks by his UEFA counterpart, said he was hopeful of progress.
“Like all over the world, what is important is the will of both sides,” he told Insideworldfootball. “We could feel there was goodwill in the meeting. Of course there are still some issues to settle, notably an agreement on general principle. That would be the first step. Then they would have to work on specifics.”
Asked how any agreement would overcome the one country, one federation principle, Corvaro answered: “This is part of the discussions. If President Blatter is available, obviously we will try to find a suitable date for him to be present. The agreement is not finalised yet and needs to be fine-tuned before the meeting in Zurich.”
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