EPO

[Don Giovanni]

I've been quiet on this issue partly due to the passing of Van't Schip's sister, but also because I wanted to wait and see more of the facts. It's been revealed in a report that aired on a Marinakis owned TV channel that Savvidis is also the owner of Xanthi's stadium and training ground via a what appears to be a shell company.

These allegations aren't new. Last May, Georgios Georgiou, a well-known journalist/pundit, had to step down as president of Apollon Smyrna after he made claims that Savvidis owned both Xanthi and Panetolikos.

Savvidis denies that he and/or any of his relatives own Xanthi, but questionable links do exist. It's worth stressing that this past summer Grammenos had attempted to provide a legal basis for multiple club ownership in Greece, but FIFA questioned it and ultimately the move failed. It would now seem that whatever arrangement Savvidis has with Xanthi might have been the impetus that spurred the EPO in their attempt to legalize such an arrangement.

I doubt PAOK or Xanthi will be relegated, due to political reasons. I also think the claim against Savvidis isn't strong enough to hold up in court. The PAOK fan base is already decrying it as a conspiracy against their club, and for all I know that may be true. Marinakis and Savvidis have a lot of bad blood between them. I do think Xanthi will need to find new owners for their facilities and that their president, as well any board member connected to Savvidis, will have to step down. This arrangement does look suspicious and raises serious questions. More troubling, however, is that this adds more fuel to the fire that Grammenos is a Savvidis-man. The fact he tried to make legal what Savvidis stands now accused of is very fishy.

[Amorgos]

Speaks volumes about Grammenos. Bloke should be running a cafenio at best

[paokarag4]

I've been quiet on this issue partly due to the passing of Van't Schip's sister, but also because I wanted to wait and see more of the facts. It's been revealed in a report that aired on a Marinakis owned TV channel that Savvidis is also the owner of Xanthi's stadium and training ground via a what appears to be a shell company.

These allegations aren't new. Last May, Georgios Georgiou, a well-known journalist/pundit, had to step down as president of Apollon Smyrna after he made claims that Savvidis owned both Xanthi and Panetolikos.

Savvidis denies that he and/or any of his relatives own Xanthi, but questionable links do exist. It's worth stressing that this past summer Grammenos had attempted to provide a legal basis for multiple club ownership in Greece, but FIFA questioned it and ultimately the move failed. It would now seem that whatever arrangement Savvidis has with Xanthi might have been the impetus that spurred the EPO in their attempt to legalize such an arrangement.

I doubt PAOK or Xanthi will be relegated, due to political reasons. I also think the claim against Savvidis isn't strong enough to hold up in court. The PAOK fan base is already decrying it as a conspiracy against their club, and for all I know that may be true. Marinakis and Savvidis have a lot of bad blood between them. I do think Xanthi will need to find new owners for their facilities and that their president, as well any board member connected to Savvidis, will have to step down. This arrangement does look suspicious and raises serious questions. More troubling, however, is that this adds more fuel to the fire that Grammenos is a Savvidis-man. The fact he tried to make legal what Savvidis stands now accused of is very fishy.

One thing is for sure, there is plenty of bad blood and unfortunately football suffers. I'm under no disillusions that Savvidis has done some shifty stuff in his time, he's a billionaire most business man that make that type of money have done some not so savory stuff.

Now there are a few holes in this story, number one and perhaps most important, Marinakis channel ran the story. How can they be expected to be impartial and fair especially given the climate between the 2 teams at the moment. The same way if Open ran a story that one of Marinakis boats was caught with drugs on it, or he was recorded speaking to a ref on a phone trying to impact results (hang on a second ) I would take it with a grain of salt. These organisations want to tear each other down, Olympiakos as of late more so. If an Antenna or another news outlet that has no affiliation (which is hard to find in Greece) had ran the story I'd be more inclined to believe it.

Don't get me wrong where there's smoke there is fire, but these men are far too powerful and rich for anything to happen to them. They have lawyers and have insulated themselves from a lot of legal issues. In Greece having money is enough to get you out of anything, especially the amount of money these 2 have. As you said Don, legally I'd be very surprised if having your cousin be a part owner of club can get you prosecuted. This will just add fuel to fire of the war that is currently raging between PAOK and Olympiakos, the fans will use it to taunt each other and try belittle the others achievements.

On an unrelated note, glad to be part of the forum. PAOK is underrepresented on here and I'm happy to be flying the black and white flag.

[Reaper]

A good post. Many of the other channels though have affiliations and are not neutral. As we know Alafouzos owns Skai, Tzigger Alpha channel and I am sure other channel owners have various 'associates.' I don't trust any channel.

On an unrelated note, glad to be part of the forum. PAOK is underrepresented on here and I'm happy to be flying the black and white flag.

Great to see one of you guys here. I think your club has the potential to dominate Greek football.

[paokarag4]

I agree Reaper, it's part of the problem with our country most media in Greece is biased and has an angle. Unfortunately many people believe what is presented to them without questioning who is producing the stories and this just adds to tensions.

Thanks for the welcome, in terms of us dominating we are definitely in a golden era, but our core is ageing. We need to sign some players in the summer to replace the ageing guys and hopefully either qualifying for either the Champions League group stage or having a run in the Europa league. Losing Lucesecu in the off-season hurt us no doubt.

[Don Giovanni]

This situation doesn't look good. Savvidis just needs to sell his holdings in Xanthi's assets and anyone connected to him on that board must resign. All this talk of PAOK being relegated is not possible. Even if the allegations are true, we can't relegate PAOK like this. It's not happening, rules be damned. Greece has known match-fixing problems. The league lacks legitimacy any which way we cut it. The only message this would send is Olympiacos owns the league again and anyone who muscles in on their racket can screw themselves (where have we heard that before?). This would change nothing for the better, but Savvidis must make things right.

Also things don't look good at the EPO. Grammenos is from Thessalonki and it's pretty obvious he leans on Savvidis for support. The more I think about how things work in Greece, the more I believe we need to do something radical and new, like nothing else seen in the world, to get us back onto proper footing.

Maybe we need to look at changing how club ownership works in Greece and set clubs up on a region-by-region basis. I've had playing in my head that we should do something sort of like in North American sports. Maybe we should only have one professional division, no relegation, and use the lower divisions as feeder clubs. Maybe divide the ownership into shares of the league instead of the clubs and let the supporters own the shares of the clubs.

Our clubs right now live and die on our owners. And the fact Savvidis might be the proxy owner of Xanthi isn't the real problem, but maybe it's what the league actually needs. A club like Xanthi isn't that attractive to own. Neither is Panetolikos in Central Greece. But these places do need the representation. Greece can't just be Athens and Thessaloniki, otherwise the league becomes unattractive as a whole. And owners are hesitant to invest money in signings. Many are tight with money.

Our league has major issues, even at the most fundamental things like paying players and scheduling games in a timely manner. Security at big games aren't good enough. The refereeing standards are not good enough. Greek coaches are really lagging behind. Our own players, once they hit the professional level, are falling behind the standards. We need a big overhaul and it's hard to address these issues when only Olympiacos is the only club in Greece setup properly.

At some point we have to come together and do what's best for everyone because the way we're doing things is seeing us fall way behind. Maybe this dilemma now with Savvidis is showing us the best way forward, but we need to do it right, not like this.

[Don Giovanni]

Giannakopoulos recently stated he had to scout opponents himself because the EPO had not hired any scouts. He also said that the ideas now being implemented under Van't Schip were the same ideas they had wanted to implement under Anastasiadis.

Karagounis said we don't have the money to rebuild the stadium in Crete (a place where fans will come to watch the team play) and the team can no longer play at Karaiskakis for reasons he chose not to specify.

https://www.agonasport.com/agonaspor...-the-opponents

[Reaper]

Giannakopoulos recently stated he had to scout opponents himself because the EPO had not hired any scouts. He also said that the ideas now being implemented under Van't Schip were the same ideas they had wanted to implement under Anastasiadis.

So again, as I always stated, the EPO mimicking the wider Greek strategy of managed decline. The EPO has employed a record amount of people but among there number there was not even one scout - because of course the aim was never winning games.. but excessive PASOK inspired bureaucracy.

[Dean97]

I don’t know where to put this post. So I’ve decided to put it here.

Pablo Garcia in an interview earlier this year discussed the state of Greek football and PAOK u19s. He was talking about how Greece need to restructure and organise there youth systems and need to upgrade there stadiums in order for Greek football and the national team to thrive.

He also said there’s a lot of politics in the national team and that the more deserving and talented players don’t get to play for Greece while players who aren’t good enough do. He can’t understand why this is happening. Also he said it shouldn’t matter how young a player is, if he’s good enough he should play! He gave an example about talented player Koutsias who is 16. He’s also spoke about the PAOK youth coming in to the first team.

The interviewer also talks about how Greece should have like a u23s league and Garcia explains how young players need to play games all the time in order to improve. Most of this stuff is common sense but I like the way Garcia is saying it. He says it straight.

Here’s the interview. If you want you can skip to minute 10.


https://youtu.be/8vuUStoMmw8

[Reaper]

The guy is highly intelligent and was wise enough to learn Greek. I agree with everything he says. His record as a youth manager broke many records.

[Reaper]

6th postponing:

https://m.sport24.gr/football/epo-ekloges.9084229.html

[Amorgos]

Do you laugh or cry... the worst EPO President keeps staying on

[Amorgos]

7th postponing is real, another fake date, I mean new date is February 15

[Dean97]

This is beyond ridiculous. UEFA should step in or something. Just curious, what happened with Mitsotakis and UEFA working together to clean up Greek football??

[Reaper]

Giving up a job where you don't have to show your accounts is never easy..