The president of the Greek Football League Vangelis Marinakis resigned on Tuesday after violence which shook the world of sport in Greece and which led Athens to decree closed doors for Championship matches for two months.
“I have neither the time nor the desire to continue to be involved in the management of the League while the words of certain members of the board of directors are not consistent with their actions,” wrote Evangelos “Vangelis » Marinakis, also president of Olympiakos Piraeus, in a letter to Greek League board members.
Katia Koxenoglou, vice-president of Atromitos FC, will serve as interim president of the Super League until new elections are held.
This is the first time that a woman has been appointed head of the Greek Football League.
Mr. Marinakis, a wealthy 56-year-old shipowner, is considered one of the most influential and controversial people in the country. He is also president of the English club Nottingham Forest.
This resignation, demanded by several clubs which had filed a motion of rejection against him, comes the day after the adoption by the conservative government of measures to try to respond to the violence which is plaguing sport and soccer in Greece.
Behind closed doors
All elite matches will be played behind closed doors until February 12, while security measures will be reinforced in the stadiums.
The government spokesperson clarified Monday that this measure could also apply “on a case-by-case basis to the European matches of Greek teams” participating this week in the Europa League (C3) and the Europa Conference League (C4).
The C3 match between Olympiakos and the Serbian club Backa Topola will take place on Thursday without spectators.
“I unequivocally condemn all forms of violence, both in society and in football,” the businessman underlined in his resignation letter, assuring that he wanted to rid Greek football “of the criminal elements that are killing it.”
The latest episode of this violence was the clashes between hooligans on the sidelines of a volleyball derby in Athens last Thursday, during which a police officer was seriously injured by a distress flare launched by an 18-year-old.
The latter was arrested and taken into custody on Sunday.
On December 4, a Super League match between Olympiakos and Volos was also interrupted due to violence caused by hooligans.
And in August, Michalis Katsouris, a 29-year-old supporter of AEK Athens, was stabbed to death during a fight between Croatian and Greek hooligans in the capital.
Referees strike
Mr. Marinakis criticized “certain people” who, according to him, did not contribute to fighting this violence, without however being more precise.
“I tried to create professional arbitration […] and all this with the agreement of the vast majority of teams,” he further indicated.
“But it also seems that some people don’t want to change it,” he wrote.
All matches of the Greek championship scheduled for this weekend and counting for the fourteenth day have been postponed due to a strike by referees to denounce this violence.
He lamented that “some people think we should not move forward and I have neither the time nor the will to take care of football in an institutional role as some want and not as I envision.” .
Former municipal councilor of Piraeus, where he is from, Mr. Marinakis is also the head of a vast media group which notably includes one of the country’s main daily newspapers, Ta Nea, and the Mega television channel.
Last year, he engaged in an open war with conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis after revelations in the press that he had been the target of illegal tapping of his cell phone.
Coming from a family of shipowners, the businessman is nevertheless close to New Democracy (ND), the ruling party in Greece.
The fifty-year-old has been in trouble with the law for threats, drug trafficking and match-fixing, accusations that he has always categorically denied.
With Alexandros Kottis