World Soccer - UK 2020-05)

eyewitness

routine champions. PAOK won the title

last year for the first time since 1985 and

the pair were way ahead in the table this

season before the Greek Super League

was suspended in March.

Both clubs are led by controversial

oligarchs who are bitter rivals in business,

politics and the media as well as football,

while the teams share a long-standing

and growing enmity.

However, a particularly virulent dispute

between the sides during the latest

campaign has threatened to implode

the whole of Greek football.

In December 2019 a report by

a TV channel owned by Olympiakos

president Evangelos Marinakis accused

PAOK’s owner Ivan Savvidis of violating

ownership rules by illegally acquiring

a stake in another Super League club,

Xanthi, allegedly through a Cypriot

offshore company controlled by one

of his relatives. Savvidis denied the

allegations but, in January, Greece’s

independent sporting commission

ruled that PAOK should be relegated.

That move triggered a massive outcry.

While PAOK fans took to the streets and

threatened violence against government

officials, the club accused Olympiakos of

trying to win the championship by having

them demoted. European Parliament

MP Theodoros Zagorakis – the former

PAOK midfielder and president who

captained the Greek national team to

an unlikely victory at Euro 2004 – was

expelled by the ruling New Democracy

party after he threatened to quit if PAOK

were relegated.

The government, finding itself caught

in an uncomfortable place between

two powerful feuding presidents and

two furious sets of fans, swiftly passed

new ownership legislation to block the

relegation, but said PAOK would probably

face a hefty points deduction. This

triggered further fury among Olympiakos

supporters, while PAOK’s fans continued

to accuse the government of siding with

Olympiakos.

With the expression “football civil

war” becoming commonplace in the

Greek media, the country’s prime

minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis threatened

to suspend the league and sought

emergency talks with UEFA and FIFA

to reform a much troubled domestic

game which has long struggled with

hooliganism; allegations of corruption,

match fixing and doping; political

machinations; Machiavellian antics

Committed...PAOK’s Sverrir Ingi Ingason (left)

Protest...PAOK fans

take to the streets

of Thessaloniki

“The government makes statements but they are

aware that they can’t actually compete with the

power of the club presidents”

Sports journalist Alexandros Kottis