A Greek referee, who led a suspicious local match in the country in 2018 in which a club owner stormed the field with a gun, admitted on Saturday that he allowed a goal that changed the outcome of the match out of fear for his family.
Giorgos Kominis told the Betadress website that he “felt sick” when people outside the changing room threatened his pregnant wife, while the police stood idly by.
In response to a question about whether he changed the result in a local derby match between PAOK Thessaloniki and AEK Athens, in which the winning goal was initially disallowed due to offside, out of fear for his family, Kominis replied, “Exactly.”
“This match has haunted my career,” Cominis said.
He continued, “I lived in fear. People used to follow my wife to the supermarket when she was eight months pregnant. I never told anyone before.”
In one of the most controversial matches in Greek League history, PAOK owner Ivan Savvidis stormed onto the pitch to confront the referee in protest after the goal was disallowed in the 90th minute.
The incredible story of the weekend: PAOK owner Ivan Savvidis detained as he enters the pitch, armed, to attack the match referee who denied his team a goal at the last minute pic.twitter.com/4zsKv7CnN6
— Bruno Constant (@Bruno_Constant) March 12, 2018
Kouminis said on Saturday that the assistant referee told him, “Literally, the goal was offside. (But) who can cancel the goal here?”, referring to PAOK’s home fans.
Savvidis, a Greek-Russian tobacco industry worker and former Russian lawmaker in the party of President Vladimir Putin, was initially given a 25-month suspended prison sentence over the incident.
In May, the Court of Appeal reduced his sentence to an eight-month suspended sentence. Cominis was expelled from the referee’s roster two years after the incident.
2023-11-18 21:36:34
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