Blackhawk

Today was the Superleague hearing concerning this match. Kominis the ref of the game refused to appear before the judge even though he was asked to do so. PAOK asked to have the hearing postponed, but that was turned down by the judge. At the end of the hearing the judge ordered Kominis to supply answers in writing by Monday. Decision is expected on Wednesday or Thursday. It will be interesting to see the verdict in the case. The match report has more holes than a swiss cheese and that's why PAOK wanted the ref to appear before the judge.

Today Savvidis sold Donskoy Tabak (which also owes SEKAP in Greece) to a Japan Tobacco for $ 1.6 Billion. In a press release Savvidis's company Dimera Group (which also owes PAOK) announced that they will now focus on more investments in Greece.

Of course it's Amorgos. He is free to post anything he wants as long as it does not break forum rules.

When are you people going to realize that the coach does not make the calls. Managers that do.

If there is Superleague next season the TV deal will be a mess. I doubt if there will be a collective deal. Each team for itself. This will be very bad for small teams that will end up without contract. I also see PAOK breaking up their deal with NOVA for next season.

Savvidis and Melissanidis managed through a combined effort to convince the majority of various "enosis" to vote for Grammenos in order to defeat Girtzikis in the EPO elections. Savvidis delivered 50 % of the enosis, Melissanidis 30% and the rest voted for Olympiakos supported enosis. The original effort to oust the Olympiakos controlled EPO included Alafouzos, but that went out of the window fairly early in the process. After that he joined hands with Marinakis to promote his propaganda on his TV station. And of course now the Savvidis - Melissanidis cooperation is dead after the latest events. Officiating has improved due to the fact that they cleaned up most of the corrupted refs, but there were few that still remained (Aretopoulos, Kalogeropoulos, Kominis) mainly because the referees are controlled appointed to games by FIFA. As for Grammenos he really did not have enough time to do anything substantial. He tried to fix up the national team by taking them out from the Karaiskaki Stadium, but that is now will not last long either. He will not last long. He was hated by Olympiakos from the beginning and now that the PAOK - AEK cooperation is finished we will go back to Olympiakos controlled EPO.

What exactly happened in the last two games at Toumba? The stadium was a church at both games. As for Larisa, the pitch is better to grow potatoes instead of playing football.

That's where it's heading in my opinion. For decades Athens considered northern Greece a second class region. Different country if you will. I am afraid it might eventually happen.

EPO is reacting to the media hysteria in Athens where they are portraying Toumba as some jungle. After this if I was PAOK I would not allow the Greek national team to play at Toumba again. And that goes for the U21 team as well which claimed Toumba as their home for the past few games.

Do you know who the EPO leader is and how he became the leader of EPO? And BTW the reason I asked you how long you have been following Greek football to see how much of the Greek football past have you witnessed. So I ask you. For the past 23 years have you seen any improvement?

Fairly good article on the reason why there is an organized war against PAOK and the owner of the team: http://www.periodista.gr/politiki/article/91775/spame-tin-omerta-etsi-estisan-ton-iban-sabbidi-etsi-theloun-na-stisoun-ton-alexi-tsipra

Of all the team owners from the past (Vardinogiannis, Melissanidis Kokkalis, Marinakis, Alafouzios) only one one had the balls to publicly apologize for his actions:

The only reason the "relegation issue" has been regurgitated over and over is because of the hysterical and in my eyes hypocritical coverage of the Athenian media in Greece. If they have the balls at Superleague and EPO I hope they do it. But first they need to relegate Olympiakos for fixing up games for the past decade. If not, it will be another selectively enforced law to suit somebody else. This unfortunately bring the country closer to the 2nd civil war in Greece. Even without the football issues that's where the country is slowly going. I've said it before. The issue is political and football is just the excuse. I am afraid we might end up like the former Yougoslavia, and incidentally it was a football match that sparked that conflict.

The game will be played at OAKA in Athens after EPO chickened out to the hysteria in Greek media.

If the ban will fix what's wrong with Greek football than I am all for it. However I even doubt that.

True, but that has not prevented others bringing guns to the Greek stadiums in the past, ranging from team owners to league presidents. The issue has not been dealt with it then. and we have problems at present as a result. The biggest problem in Greek society and Greek football is that laws exist, but they are selectively or seldom enforced.

Nobody threatened anybody with a gun and I even question if there was a verbal abuse by Savvidis. That's just media controlled by POK team(s) and political parties frenzy the last two days. The issue is political and economical. Ever since Savvidis took over PAOK and started investing in northern Greece. And you are right jvc. The league will be sabotaged on weekly basis. Greek football has been sick for decades, but suspending the season for few weeks and then restarting it will accomplish absolutely nothing unless drastic changes are made. UEFA/FIFA came to Greece to solve the issue after the Undersecretary of Sports called them in. If they decide to punish PAOK selectively as is pushed by the Athenian media, then once again nothing will be accomplished. It needs to be a collective punishment for it to have any effect.

As far as VAR is concerned, the only team that wanted it in place this season was PAOK. Savvidis even offered to pay for it after the other owners turned it down due to being too costly. Believe me, some big teams in Superleague don't want VAR.

Can I ask you one question? How long have you been following Greek football?

The season was going good because there was a change in the EPO leadership, which was not controlled by Olympiakos as in the past. As a result Superleague became competitive and other teams finally had a good chance of contending for the title. Seeing that they lost control they decided to sabotage the whole thing.

PAOK is not the innocent party here. It's a very small part of the overall problem in Greek football and Greek society. This whole issue has political overtones written all over it.

I don't disagree with that, and he should be punished accordingly. The fact is that the game was progressing without any problems until it was decided by the ref to steal the game from PAOK. Had the ref stuck with his original decision we would not have all this hysteria right now. I have been watching the videos of the whole incident over and over since yesterday, and I am convinced that the offside call was reversed by the fourth official who was 50 meters away after he was attacked by Lyberopoulos and the entire AEK bench. Just my opinion.

Once again the Undersecretary of Sports decided to suspend the season in order to clean up football in Greece. What a joke. It will re-start in couple weeks and everything will be the same as usual.

The ref's account of the goal in the match report clearly show that he is a liar. The video shows completely different timeline of the events. We can now expect a modified match report. It's becoming a habit.

I beg to disagree with this comment. The knowledge that he was carrying a gun became known way after the shouting incident. During the whole incident he was wearing a jacket and the concealed weapon was not visible to anyone. The claim that he threatened the ref with the gun is just misleading and it is just a propaganda spread by people that have anti-PAOK bias. Same thing with Michel. We are just hearing one side of the story. Watching the video it appears that he is telling the ref that the game is finished and not that HE is finished. I watched the video few times and all I can see is Savvidis and Michel storming the field to take the team and leave the field. Thankfully this did not happen due to Vieirinha's actions stopping him from doing so. Was it wrong for Savvidis (and Michel) storming the field? Yes, but in no way there was Savvidis and his bodyguards terrorizing the ref and AEK players. For that he and Michel should be punished accordingly.