Corruption haunts Greek football

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July 2011-GREECE’S embattled professional football establishment is back in the dock. Ten people were arrested in Athens and Thessaloniki after police busted one of Greece’s biggest football match-fixing operations on Police are reportedly armed with a damning 93,000-page body of evidence, including transcripts of telephone conversations, gathered during a yearlong investigation into the scandal.

The prosecutor on June 23 ordered authorities to release the names of those arrested. They are Achilleas Beos (president of the Olympiakos Volos football club), Stavros Psomiadis (president of the Kavala football club), Yiorgos Tsakoyiannis (shareholder of the Ilioupoli football club), Nikos Halkos (former president of the Ilioupoli football club), Nikos Pantelis (coach), Dimitris Zavantias (former coach), Thanasis Dotsis (team manager), Nikos Zamanis (businessman) and bookies Andreas Dimopoulos and Vasilis Karakoulias.

Meanwhile, arrest warrants have been issued for five more men: former Kavala Football Club owner Makis Psomiadis (known as “Big Mac”), Yiannis Papakostas (coach), Michalis Nikolopoulos, Yiannis Papadopoulos and Vasilis Yeortsiakos.

More than 90 people have been questioned by authorities, who have put together the case file, which was posted on realnews.gr.

Extortion, money laundering

According to Athens public prosecutor Dimitris Pieros, the accused face a slew of criminal charges. The list includes engaging in organised criminal activities, criminal fraud (involving damages of more than 15,000 euros) and extortion, money laundering, illegal betting and illegal gun possession.

The case file was forwarded to an investigating magistrate who will begin questioning witnesses. More than 70 people, including players and a well-known Athens lawyer, will reportedly be called to testify. Many of them also face criminal charges.

Culture Minister Pavlos Yeroulanos stressed the government’s commitment to weeding out corruption in sport. He told parliament on June 23 that the ongoing investigation and arrests are “the result of systematic and serious effort and evidence that we [the government] are putting our words into action”.

UEFA’s list

The investigation was launched in October 2010 after UEFA - Europe’s governing body for football - presented the Hellenic Football Federation (EPO) with a list of 41 suspect matches from 2008 until now. The list included matches mostly from the Second Division of Greek football over the last three seasons, as well as from several Greek Cup games.

This is what led the Athens first instance court prosecutor’s office in November to launch an investigation into some 20 bank accounts belonging to the presidents of football clubs as well as to about a thousand others on a list of illegal online betting involving “suspect” games.

The scandal has rocked Greek professional football - a multimillion-euro industry. The semi-state betting company OPAP invests some 20 million euros in sponsorships for Super League clubs each year. It also spends an additional 9 million euros on the second and third divisions and 3 million to the Greek Football Association.

OPAP, meanwhile, is facing its own battle against corruption. Athens Prosecutor Eleni Raikou recently brought charges against five of its executives, including Sokratis Kokkalis. They currently face felony charges for the excessive cost of a 280 million euro contract awarded by the company to Intralot (its subsidiary) after an international tender was declared void.{jcomments on}