Shocking revelation that the registered members of Gate 7 are only… 27, while the leading executives – who are not even registered – were taking invitations and tickets from PAE Olympiacos without control and selling them at the drop of a hat
In the five years of government of the country by the ND and Kyriakos Mitsotakis Greek football counts four dead and each time we hear from the prime minister and his relevant ministers about the measures taken or to be taken for the associations of organized fans, many of which operate as private armies and their offices as yafkes full of all kinds of munitions.
So the associations changed, their supposed constitutions changed, the conditions for membership changed, and they were renamed fan clubs. After the murder of Alkis Kampanos o Lefteris Avgenakis, Deputy Minister of Sports at the time, closed the links for six months! The Minister of Citizen Protection at the time Takis Theodorikakos with pompous statements he repeated and assured (like his predecessors and his successors, like all the relevant government ministers who have a say in matters of fan violence) that the controls on the links will be continuous and much stricter. In fact, they flagged that various fan offices were locked during police raids. It is obvious, however, that no minister of Mr. Mitsotakis in the last five years, with the four dead victims of fan violence, ever faced the problem at its root. That is, to find out how the links really work. For example, how members sign up, if they qualify, etc. Simply checking the offices of a link for weapons and ammunition used by hooligans does not say much since the rioters now know what is going on and hide their arsenal in the houses of acquaintances or in uninhabited buildings, in plots, fields and warehouses.
He got rid of them
With the dismantling of the criminal organization that was active inside Gate 7, i.e. the core of the organized fans of Olympiakos, members of which were allegedly involved in the murder of the 31-year-old policeman Giorgos Lyggeridis, they opened their mouths about how the hooligans acted and continue to act. And this happens in all the organized platforms of all the big teams. But what is surprising are the rulers’ bold words about strict controls, at a time when in the police report after the 67 arrests of members of Thira 7 there is a whole paragraph about what happens to its members and in fact it clears ministers and deputy ministers , but also the prime minister himself, who speak of strict measures against fan violence.
As characteristically states the multi-page communication of ELAS regarding the action of members of Door 7: “…according to the copy of the membership register book granted by the General Secretariat of Sports, to which it is submitted annually, there are only (twenty-seven) 27 registered members and as therefore it should not receive more tickets than its members. It should be noted that among the registered members of the upper Olympiakos Fan Club “THYRA 7” none of the leading or junior members of the criminal organization is included.
That’s right: the largest fan link has only 27 members! And it is understood that these do not include the leading executives, nor the lower ones who acted out of bounds. And while they shouldn’t have taken more than 27 tickets, they were nevertheless provided with as many as they needed and some of the leaders even sold them at the drop of a hat! Let Mr. Avgenakis speak, let them answer convincingly – if of course they can – BrutsisTheodorikakos, Housekeeper, Chrysochoidisand of course their political leader, Mr. Mitsotakis.
The transmission
In detail, ELAS’ report on the issue (it is understood that this is how the links of all major groups work) for Door 7 is as follows: “…In addition, the leading members of the Criminal Organization, as emerged from various statements, received from PAE OLYMPIAKOS invitations for free entry, which they then either distributed to junior members allowing them to enter the stadium for free, an action that aids their subsequent recruitment into the criminal organization, or they sold them at a price they set. They also could and did procure mass tickets which they then sold outside the G. KARAISKAKIS and SEF stadiums, at a price higher than the listed price. However, in accordance with article 41C of Law 2725/1999 as applicable and the HYPOPAITH/GDYA/DTY/ MAE/229157/12877 /1280/236 (Government Gazette B1801/ 20.8.2015) executive order, the tickets and invitations for the matches, national championships, as well as the Greek Cup, including international and friendly matches, in which AAE or TAA participate are always issued by name and numbered. Non-registered tickets, of the lowest price and only for its members, are entitled to receive only the recognized association of fans (art. 41C of Law 2725/1999). In this case, the only legal, according to the provisions of article 41B of Law 2725/1999, OLYMPIACOS fans’ association, is the association with the name “Olympiakos Fans’ Club TYRA 7”, which was established and operates with the consent of the sports association. OLYMPIC Fans Association of Piraeus” and which, according to the copy of the membership register book granted by the General Secretariat of Sports, to which it is submitted annually, has only (twenty-seven) 27 registered members and therefore should not receive more tickets than members of. It should be noted that none of the leading or junior members of the criminal organization is included among the registered members of the upper Olympiakos Fan Club “THYRA 7”. At this point it should be pointed out that the list of Annexes attached to the case file, which numbers 37 annexes throughout Greece, concerns the annexes of the “OLYMPIC Piraeus Fans’ Association” sports association, as is clearly evident from the stamps on it and the letterheads used, and not branches of the Olympiakos Fan Club “THYRA 7”. Therefore, the mass distribution of non-registered tickets for the needs of the Olympiakos Fan Club “THYRA 7” is in no way justified and can only be characterized as sham, as is also indirectly but clearly confirmed by the affidavit of the Head of the Professional Sports Department Organizations of the Professional Sports Directorate, according to which article 41C of Law 2725/1999, during the period under review, was not fully implemented (especially with regard to the fan card) and especially at the gates of the organized fans of the teams’ links, the disposition of tickets is done directly by the PAE through the recognized Fan Clubs as provided for in paragraph 5 of article 41C of Law 2725/1999, at the same time the PAE disables the possibility of buying tickets from the general public at the specific gates through the electronic ticketing system. In practice, however, such tickets are also available to non-members of recognized clubs. Therefore, through the unjustified, illegal and uncontrollable, mass distribution of tickets and invitations to leading members of the criminal organization, and their subsequent resale at a “hat”, i.e. at a price higher than the listed price, these members were indirectly financed by whoever provided them with the tickets and invitations…”.
What did the ministers say?
A few days after the murder of Alkis Kampanos in Thessaloniki, four ministers and deputy ministers, Citizen Protection, Justice, Sports and the other prime ministers (T. Theodorikakos, K. Tsiaras, L. Avgenakis, G. Oikonomou), organized a solemn press conference ( 21.2.22) to announce stricter measures, penalties and controls as well as a temporary ban on fan links. “We continue to check on organized fan associations that operate and those who do not meet the provisions of the law will be sealed. ELAS will be very strict in the implementation of the legislative interventions that my two colleagues will announce” stated bluntly Mr. Theodorikakos and added among other things that “we are implementing a training program for police personnel based on European standards for the prevention and treatment of juvenile delinquency, because juveniles are usually the victims of conversion by hooligans. We have specialized teams with the participation of psychologists, so that we can approach young people in the right way.” And concluding he said that “we are upgrading the continuous supervision of the measures to deal with fan violence with the daily involvement of a senior officer of the ELAS headquarters, specifically its deputy leader. […] In this way, the control framework is intensified and our operational capacity is upgraded, in order to limit the vital space of action of these criminal groups and to deal with the phenomenon of hooliganism at its root. We can; Yes we can!”.
And L. Avgenakis in March 2022 assured in a strict style that “Our goal is more effective supervision of clubs and the prevention of fan violence offenses through stricter penalties. We are shielding the institutional arsenal against acts of fan violence, providing the institutional tools and stricter and more effective implementation of previous provisions, for fan clubs, the penalty framework and administrative measures against violence. The aim is to eliminate fan violence inside and outside facilities. We also give the fan clubs their fair share of responsibility and make it easier and more effective to control them.”
Brutsis for… the festivals
How much the institutional framework was shielded was shown by the way the members of the “criminal organization” acted in the hit on December 7, 2023 in Rentis. Exactly how the checks of the clubs or associations were (not) carried out is clarified in detail by the police themselves in their report on the case of the murder of G. Lyggeridis. Nevertheless, the Deputy Minister of Sports G. Vroutsis is “celebrating” because, as his ministry informed us last Thursday with a press release, “the focus of the 5th Session of the Monitoring Committee of the Saint Denis Convention is the implementation by our country of the measures about fan violence. The partners welcomed the progress Greece has made on spectator safety, protection and service by incorporating and implementing the recommendations of the Council of Europe’s Saint Denis Convention in the recent
Law 5085/2024″.
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