By Matt Scott
May 9 – The Greek Football Cup final scheduled for Saturday was postponed by the government amid safety fears for the match.
A 48-hour strike by public-service unions began in Greece on Saturday, causing a reduction in the numbers of police available for the game between AEK Athens and Olympiacos.
“By decision of deputy sports minister Stavros Kontonis (pictured), the Greek Cup final is postponed at the request of the Greek police and the standing committee against violence,” said the ministerial office in a statement.
The first semi-final between Olympiacos and PAOK Salonika had been marred by crowd violence after a disputed decision not to award a penalty caused PAOK fans to riot. It led to the abandonment of the fixture, to a 3-0 automatic win in favour of Olympiacos and to the deputy sports minister putting a temporary halt to the competition altogether.
Although it was reinstated, PAOK refused even to attend the second leg of the semi-final against Olympiacos, putting the Greek champions into the final where they would have the opportunity to win a fourth domestic double in five years.
Yet the decision to delay the final came despite the fact that the match was in any case due to be played behind closed doors. Greek media outlets were reporting over the weekend that Kontonis’s new postponement decision was also due to a last-minute decision by the Hellenic Football Federation to change the linesmen in the final.
The HFF and Kontonis had previously set out who would be the match officials in the showpiece game amid distrust of refereeing decisions in Greek football competitions. Several referees and former HFF officials are among those under investigation in a criminal inquiry into a match-fixing conspiracy whose ringleader is allegedly the Olympiacos president and owner, Evangelos Marinakis. They all deny wrongdoing.
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