Limassol’s Alphamega stadium on Monday turned down a request from the Cyprus Football Association to host the national team’s upcoming Uefa Nations League match against Lithuania.
National team manager Sofronis Avgousti had requested that the game, which is set to be played on November 15, be moved from the team’s usual home ground, Larnaca’s Aek Arena, to Limassol, in the hope that more fans would be tempted to attend the game.
However, the Alphamega stadium refused to host the game, saying that the forthcoming international break will be used to carry out maintenance works on the stadium’s pitch, as three top flight teams – Apollon, Ael, and Aris Limassol – all play their home games at the ground, whereas only Aek play at the Aek Arena.
Cyprus currently sit third in their Nations League group, having taken three points from four games.
In the last international break in October, they suffered two defeats, being beaten 3-0 at home by Romania at the Aek Arena, before being on the wrong end of the same scoreline away against Kosovo three days later.
The team’s solitary win so far this campaign came away against Lithuania in a hastily rearranged fixture in Marijampole. Lithuania are bottom of the group, having lost all four of their games so far.
Attendances for national team matches in Cyprus have long been dwarfed by those of the country’s largest clubs, with the largest national team attendance so far this year being the 6,092 who saw the 3-0 defeat to Romania in October.
That figure was largely propped up by a large contingent of Romanian fans attending the game, with other national team games typically seeing attendances of around 2,000 or fewer.
A total of 2,041 people watched the 4-0 drubbing at the hands of Kosovo in September, while the national team’s other two home games this year – friendlies against Latvia and Serbia at the Aek Arena in March – saw attendances of 1,383 and 1,938 respectively.
The national team’s most recent game at the Alphamega stadium was a friendly match against Lithuania in November last year which was watched by 1,169 people. Three days prior, 9,667 people had watched a Euro 2024 qualifier against Spain at the same venue.
