€843,750 but what are described as
“direct football expenses” of €2.5million.
The club was advanced €2m from
its shareholders but that investment
was burned up by salaries and other
expenditure and the club posted a loss
of just under €2m in 2018.
According to Dubov’s website, the
stake in Pafos is controlled through
Total Sports Investments (TSI), which is
a limited liability partnership registered
in the UK. TSI was set up in 2016 with
three directors: Olga and Roman Dubov,
and Giedrus Pukas, a Russian-based
Lithuanian, who owns and runs Quadro
Capital. In 2017, Pukas resigned, leaving
TSI to the Dubovs.
Under UK company law, any accounts
with turnover of less than £632,000
are deemed micro entities. Revenue and
profit does not have to be declared but
the 2018 accounts for TSI show a loss
of £85,414.
Fragile finances are common in
weaker European leagues such as
Cyprus, as UEFA acknowledges in
its latest financial report.
“Many middle- and lower-income
clubs are still reliant on donations and
other types of income,” notes UEFA.
“Other revenues include numerous items,
but donations and grants are the most
common. The relatively large percentage
of revenue coming from this sourceunderlines the precarious nature of club
finances in many middle- and lower-
income leagues.”
Clubs that turn over less than €5m are
not covered by UEFA’s Financial Fairplay
regulations so investors like Lomakin and
Dubov can prop up clubs for as long as
they see fit.
Pafos do have sponsorship from the
likes of local developer Korantina Homes,
and also from domestic TV income,
which is relatively large for a country of
a million people. In 2018, Pafos received
€385,000 for domestic TV rights and
€301,503 from UEFA, which pools
money to help clubs be more sustainable.
Dubov also claims player sales, such
as Scottish defender Kevin Holt back toeyewitness
Queen of the South, Swiss goalkeeper
Joel Mall to Apollon Limassol and Jander
to Serbia’s Red Star Belgrade, generated
income. The fee for Jander was not
disclosed but Pafos described it as a
club record.
“I think we will beat the transfer record
of the club for the transfer period, and
we will get more than €500,000 in
profits for the players, but let’s not run
ahead of ourselves,” said Dubov last
summer, before Pafos’ latest spending
spree on the likes of Puncheon.
However, balancing the books –
certainly through activities in Cyprus –
may prove difficult and the independent
auditors of the last accounts for Pafos
were not impressed. In a note with the
2018 accounts, A Soutzis Audit Limited
concluded: “We have been unable to
gather sufficient appropriate audit
evidence to satisfy ourselves to the
completeness and accuracy of the
information provided by the company’s
management due to the lack of sufficient
and clearly presented accounting records.
“There were no other satisfactory audit
procedures that we could adopt to satisfy
ourselves that the recorded balances as
mentioned above were free from material
misstatements and we have been unable
to gather appropriate audit evidence to
satisfy ourselves as to the completeness
and accuracy of the bank balances forShort deal...Giorgos
Valerianos on loan at
Riga from Pafos