By Matt Scott
November 10 – Greek football’s terminal descent into chaos was complete on Wednesday when the Hellenic Football Federation (HFF) announced league football in the country was to be suspended.
The cause of the moratorium was the most alarming development yet in what is Europe’s most turbulent football nation: an alleged arson attack on a holiday home belonging to the head of the Central Refereeing Commission.
The Fire Service of Greece is investigating an incident on Tuesday night at a property in Ierissos of Halkidiki in Central Macedonia. Its owner is Giorgos Bikas, chairman of the three-man CRC. Investigators are treating it as arson.
Only three nights previously, Bikas’s CRC colleague Ioannis Tsachilidis had received a visit at his home by two masked men threatening violence. Following that event, Tsachiildis, Bikas and the CRC panel’s third member, Dimitris Kalyvas, tendered their resignations.
After the first incident, both FIFA and the HFF – which is currently run by a FIFA Normalisation Committee while two separate criminal investigations for match fixing are under way – issued warnings that they would not hesitate to put an end to football in Greece upon a repeat incident.
When Bikas informed the HFF, which passed on the message to Costakis Koutsokoumnis, the FIFA special envoy on the Normalisation Committee, the decision was taken to suspend league football.
“The HFF’s Temporary Administrative Committee decided at an extraordinary meeting today to suspend all national football championships until the announcement of the outcome of the investigation of the causes of the fire by the Fire Service, when the HFF will re-examine its attitude,” the HFF said in a statement.
FIFA had previously warned a repeat of the violence in the country would lead to its teams being banned from international competition.
However, Greece’s friendly international at Olympiacos’s stadium went ahead on Wednesday night, where the hosts were beaten 1-0 by Belarus. Despite the FIFA threats, the FIFA World Cup qualifier against Bosnia-Herzegovina will similarly be allowed to go ahead.
The temporary halt to domestic football will, however, lead to severe fixture difficulties. The Super League season had already begun a month late after a row over refereeing appointments leading to threats of boycotts by leading clubs, prompting the FIFA Normalisation Committee to take control of the HFF. It has clearly failed to bring order to football in Greece.
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