Goumenos & the administration

[Nikolaos]

Hey all,

I here some complaining about Goumenos and the current administration, but what I really want to know is what exactly have they done wrong, and if they leave what will that accomplish?

Here's some possible discussions:

Yes, I agree that Anastasiadis was fired possibly prematurely, but to the admin's defense, what are you suppose to do if your team is losing every game and everything looks hopeless? Don't get me wrong, I liked Angelos, and I appreciate everything he's done for PAOK, but unfortunately (or fortunately) this is professional sports and coaches get canned all the time for not winning. At the same time in Angelos defense, last year he took a team that was predicted to be mediocre, and put them in the Champions League. Shouldn't that be rewarded? I can see both sides to the story.

Regarding money, what team in Greek soccer makes any money? Do profits even exist? Has any team or owner proven they can make a profit today in Greek soccer? Isn't it possible that PAOK simply just didn't have any money to buy any players, or Angelos simply thought that the current roster was good enough? Is there any real way of knowing that Goumenos and the admin is ripping off PAOK? It sounds to me that the whole greek league is in shambles and no one really has any money. Other teams might buy some good players, but then they can't pay them. Is that the solution? Still, there's the possibility that some owners do make money, and are just ripping us off, but does anyone know for sure?

Regarding the new stadium, I agree with Ziaka, the plans do sound like a bunch of

hot air... especially when you have no specifics on funding. But at the same time, who knows, maybe they're working on funding.

Regarding the new coach Fringer, I would say give the guy at least a season to see what he can do, then make the decision to fire him or not. It takes a while for a new coach to get settled and get his system in.

Regarding Goumenos being a crook, has he even been convicted? If so, what was he convicted of? Isn't he at least better than Batatoudis? Maybe not...

Regarding the mess up on Louka playing in the Champions League game, that I do agree was a complete and utter mess up by the admin. But, at the same time, I equally blame Louka the player, who should of known not to play in the game, and f*ck up all of PAOK's chances in advancing to the next round of the Champions League.....

Anyways, I'd like to hear your feedback on all this, or anything else I might not be aware of.

Thanks, Niko

[Ziaka]

Niko I think the situation at PAOK is quite complex.

To answer your question about the administration, there are few things that they did wrong. To begin with, when they took over, they made deal with Batatoudis not to procecute him in courts for money he embezzled from PAOK.

Additionaly, when they came in they were put in charge on temporary basis, until a new buyer would come over and buy the team. The problem now is that they paid something like 2 million Euro to take control from Batatoudis, but now they are asking for 10 million for any prospective buyers. As far a s I know they are still here on temporary basis (Goumenos's words), so how come they are making all these longe term plans (new Toumba, etc.). I also think the new administration did not have the experience to run a proffesional soccer team. The one big problem they made was let Anastasiadis run other aspects of the team besides his coaching duties. In the beggining that worked fine, with outstanding debts to former players being taken care of, and with Anastasiadis holding down the bottom line by not bringing in high priced players. I believe things went wrong, early this year, when Anastasiadis started pressing the issue of a new training facility. I think at that time Goumenos decided that Anastasiadis's days at PAOK were numbered. Lot of people are blaming Anastasiadis for not bringing in new players ahead of the CL campaign. I think this was one of Anastasiadis's big mistakes, but Goumenos made the bigger mistake by not overrulling him on this matter. Instead they went ahead with plans to somehow get rid of him. I think it was a mistake to do this in mid-season. they should have done it before the season started, or should have waited until this current season ended.

Now Anastasiadis is history, and the new coach is Fringer. He should receive everybody's support and we should not look back. That does not mean that we should not be critical of Fringer, who appears not to have much clue about the Greek soccer scene.

The Louka fiasco can be blamed on the administration as well. How can you run a proffesional team and not know one of your players is not eligible to play in the European competition. There are a lot of unanswered questions in the Louka case, and I think we will never find out the real truth.

Another mistake the administration did was allienating PAOK fans, initially by raising the prices of season tickets. Later they made another blunder by claiming that all the tickets to the CL game between PAOK and Maccabi were sold out, only to come out a day before the game to say that there were still 3,000 tickets available, but you could only get one by buying a season ticket package. This has infuriated PAOK fans. I was in Thessaloniki when this happened and was one of the fans who could not get a ticket to the game.

As for profits in Greek soccer, Olympiakos, PAO and maybe Xanthi are the teams that are healthy financialy. The rest are on shaky grounds. the problem is compounded by the fact that fron next year it will be UEFA overseeing the licencing of teams, instead of EPO. With EPO in charge teams used all kinds of loopholes to get around from staying in the top division. Things will change in the future and that might be another reason why Anastasiadis tried to hold down the expanses at PAOK.

Is Goumenos a crook? Well he was convicted of irregularities on the stock market, and as a result he had to step down as PAOK president, until he was cleared by an appeal.

[Nikolaos]

Thanks for the info Ziaka. You made some good points. Based on their past actions, it looks like the current adminstration will be sticking around, for better or for worse.

[platakis]

Aigaleo have been making profits for 3 years now..

Buying uyoung players when they're unknown seems to be the key. They've managed to create a very solid team, without buying players in th elast 3 years or so..And with attendance of about 40 odd folk they're making PROFITS! And yet to sell their talent, which will raise that preofit even more. If teams with crowds behind em did that properly they could achieve a lot, spendtheir money on very few, very good players.