By Andrew Warshaw
October 18 – Greek football, for months in turmoil on and off the pitch, has been plunged into further disarray after FIFA announced it is temporarily taking over the running of the Hellenic Football federation.
FIFA is appointing a normalisation committee to run the daily affairs of the crisis-hit national federation following months of friction between the country’s football authorities and the Greek government, much of it over what to do about fan violence in and around stadiums.
Following the first full meeting of its ruling Council last week FIFA said in a fax sent to the Greek federation’s deputy president and signed by secretary general Fatma Samoura that the committee would revise the relevant regulations to bring them into line with FIFA standards as well as organise fresh Hellenic football federation elections by May 31 next year at the latest.
“The FIFA Council was briefed on the different issues faced by the Greek federation in recent months, such as the tense relationships with the authorities, due partly to discrepancies between national laws and the independence of the federation,” the letter read.
“The resignation of the president and other members of the federation’s executive committee due to judicial procedures, the allegations linked to refereeing, as well as the difficulties surrounding the management of ethics cases.”
Samoura’s fax said the size and composition of the normalisation committee would be decided by a joint FIFA and UEFA mission led by Cyprus FA chief Costakis Koutsokoumnis.
Greece’s Deputy Sports Minister Stavros Kontanis welcomed the move as “a positive development which will be combined with the placement of worthy people to manage a problem that has plagued Greek sports for years.”
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