FC Barcelona has drawn criticism in Cyprus after its academy advertised two youth football camps in the Turkish-occupied north of the island.
The club’s listing gives the venue as “Near East University, Lefkosa, Northern Cyprus”, using the Turkish name for Nicosia and the title of an entity recognised only by Turkey.
Published on August 4, the entry sets the sessions for September 7-11 and September 16-20, with three training groups a day for players aged between six and 18. It was still online on August 26.
Near East University has said coaches arriving from Spain would deliver training based on the club’s methodology.
The nationalist National Popular Front (ELAM) condemned the plan on August 24. The party said it was inconceivable for foreign organisations to stage sporting activities in the occupied areas, still less an academy attached to a club from an EU member state.
ELAM called on the Spanish Government to intervene and urged the Cypriot foreign ministry to act to prevent the camps taking place. It also demanded the cancellation of the Zamna music festival, due to be held in the north in October.
The party has claimed credit for the collapse earlier this year of another electronic music event planned at Kyrenia castle. Turkish Cypriot officials said the Serbian organisers had withdrawn after diplomatic pressure.
The Cyprus Football Association said it was examining the matter.
Turkish Cypriot leaders rejected the campaign. Prime minister Ünal Üstel said such an approach could not build trust or create a future on the island, and that young Turkish Cypriots would go on meeting athletes from abroad.
President Tufan Erhürman, who was elected in October 2025 on a pro-reunification platform, said efforts to stop international events were intended to restrict Turkish Cypriot contact with the wider world.
Cyprus has been divided since Turkey invaded in 1974. The self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus proclaimed independence in 1983, a step the UN Security Council called legally invalid.
The Republic of Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004 and the north is legally EU territory, though the application of EU law there is suspended because Nicosia does not control the area. Cyprus remains a central obstacle to Turkey’s stalled accession talks.
Barcelona has been pulled into the dispute before. In 2014 former club president Joan Laporta visited the north, met local officials and compared Catalonia’s position with that of the breakaway administration. A proposed match between Catalonia and a team from the north never took place.
The club has not commented publicly on the camps.
