The problem starts at the top and ends at the bottom, but it is not possible not to affect the smaller Categories as well.
Foreign footballers make up the majority in Greek football and that in itself is not a bad thing. Any player from any country is welcome if it really makes a difference. But does everyone do it? Definitely no.
At the moment, in the Panachaiki roster of 34 footballers, 11 are foreigners, i.e. 32%!
Big number for Super League 2. And that has two readings. One says that in the summer they brought everything they could find in front of them and in January when they wanted Greeks, they couldn’t find any and they took foreigners again!
The 11 “red and black” foreigners are Daniel Zamora, Eduardo Perez (Mexico), Johan Barre (France), Michael Mulder (Netherlands/Israel), Indi Boonen (Belgium), Cedric Alibe (Congo), Valentin Zekhoff (Russia), Zurab Bentosvili (USA/Georgia), Amadou Traore (Guinea/France), Ruben De Tomas (Spain), Johnny de Oliveira (Cape Verde/Switzerland).
The last time Panachaiki had 11 foreigners on its roster was 10 years ago (2013-2014), but then at least most of them were players:
Franz Berten, Miguel Villarejo, Nemanja Zlatkovic, Ballou, Fation Anthony, Mario Bozic, Sheik Gadiaga, Jerry Sittoe, Filipe Da Costa, Nicolas Villafane, Pato.
Panachaiki is the small icon. See what the wider picture is from the major PAEs of Super League 1: In Olympiakos 26 of the 34 players on the roster are foreigners, in Panathinaikos 23/32, in AEK 22/32, in PAOK 19/26, in Ari 24 /32, in Volos 14/28, in Panaitolikos 15/32.
Even in PAOK, which they always say gives opportunities to young players, there are 19 foreigners in their roster! Well, how can there be development of Greek football since the Greeks are not playing? How can there be a worthy National team?
