Football league suspended after armed billionaire invades pitch
GREECE’S top football league was suspended indefinitely yesterday after a billionaire team owner invaded a game with a handgun strapped to his belt.
Police issued a warrant for the arrest of Ivan Savvidis, the owner of PAOK FC, after he stormed on to the pitch in Thessaloniki on Sunday night as his club was playing AEK Athens.
Mr Savvidis, one of Greece’s richest businessmen, was furious that the referee had disallowed a 89th-minute goal by his team. The match ended goalless.
Flanked by burly bodyguards, he surged on to the pitch with the handgun in its holster and allegedly threatened the referee, Giorgos Kominos.
“He threatened the referee right in front of me,” said Manolo Jiménez, AEK’S Spanish coach. “He told him: ‘You’re finished as a referee’. I’m stunned. I don’t understand it. It’s the type of thing you expect to see in a Clint Eastwood film.” AEK players walked off the pitch and the game was abandoned. Two hours later, the referee reversed his decision and allowed the goal – propelling PAOK to first place in the Greek league.
“We have decided to suspend the championship,” said Yiorgos Vassiliadis, the deputy minister for sport, after an emergency meeting with Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister.
Mr Vassiliadis said the government had fought to “clean up” Greek football and would not allow those efforts to be threatened. Uefa, European football’s governing body, had been “shocked” by the incident, the minister added.
Greece’s championship league has been plagued by problems, from fan violence to allegations of match-fixing.
Less than a month ago, supporters of the four most popular clubs – AEK, PAOK, Olympiakos and Panathinaikos – were banned from away games after a spate of violent incidents.
Mr Savvidis has extensive business holdings in Thessaloniki and recently bought Ethnos, one of Greece’s top newspapers. The 58-year-old oligarch was born in Georgia, the former Soviet republic, of Greek heritage.
He has Greek and Russian citizenship and is a former member of the Russian parliament, where he served with Vladimir Putin’s party. He was reported to have a licence for his gun but could still be charged with invading the pitch, a relatively minor offence that does not carry a prison term.
“Ivan didn’t threaten anybody with a gun,” the businessman’s aides told Russia’s Sport Express newspaper.
“He carries weapons as he has permission for it. It’s not prohibited in Greece.” Panos Skourletis, the interior minister, promised tough measures.
Football’s world governing body Fifa said in a statement seen by the BBC that it would suspend Greece from international competition if it does not take “appropriate measures and rapidly”.