In its meeting today (8/11), the Board of Directors of Olympiacos FC took the following decisions:
1. On Mr. I. Vretzos’ proposal for the FC to withdraw from the Superleague 1 championship, the Board voted 89-2 in favor of the club’s stay in the competition. Respecting the wish of our fans’ overwhelming majority and world-class players and coaching staff, our Board decided to continue their fight to win the club’s 48th championship and 29th Cup, and express the robust belief of the entire Olympiacos family that any difference on the table is small before the giant size of Olympiacos.
2. In terms of tis immediate actions to follow, the Board unanimously decided to press charges against specific individuals that have created and currently operate a criminal organization within Greek football, which -by means of systematic blackmailing and payoffs- has elected the majority of Presidents in Football Associations and members of the Hellenic Football Federation (EPO), with their sole and exclusive purpose to place the entire Federation’s apparatus under their control, and in particulate the Executive Committee, the Central Refereeing Committee and Greek referees, along with the procedure of handpicking low-quality foreign referees.
3. It was unanimously decided that Olympiacos FC shall insist on further investigating the progress of the criminal case of extortions and bribery to EPS members across Greece, as forwarded to Mr. Konstantinos Spyropoulos, Prosecutor to the Court of First Instance of Athens, by EPO’s Ethical Committee, albeit buried in some drawer for more than a year with no witness being summoned for a deposition. The BoD also discussed this admittedly strange coincidence of this specific Prosecutor being appointed by EPO as the Head of Prosecution for Football-related Offenses, shortly after the case was forwarded.
4. It was unanimously decided to swiftly ask for a meeting with the Head of the Financial Crime Division in the Court of Appeals of Athens, so that our FC is informed on the progress of our FC’s criminal complaint against members of EPO’s Executive Committee for criminal breach of trust under the E. Grammenos administration and with regard to the scandalous agreement for Mr. I. Papadopoulou’s compensation, EPO’s abuse of funds etc.
5. OLYMPIACOS FC shall file a complaint before the President and BoD Members of the Athens Bar (DSA) against EPO’s appointed President Mr. P. Mpaltakos because as the Union President and despite being a lawyer himself, he refuses to implement Greek laws with regard to the Register of Unions and Professional Refereeing, while inviting all Member Unions to do the same; he also systematically aims at securing a fee for himself as the EPO’s President by introducing this issue in EPO’s General Meeting agenda angina and again.
6. It was unanimously decide that, given the Greek’s Government’s apathy to the challenges faced by Greek Football, our Board shall directly contact supra-national Federations FIFA and UEFA in order to expose all actions and omissions by means of which both EPO and its President Mr. Mpaltakos has actually annulled the Holistic Study, since they factually cancelled it by the way they have integrated and implemented its provisions, they have invalidated KED’s self-governing capacity by replacing -against the will of Professional Football stakeholders- former Chief Referee Mr. Μ. Clattenburg by Mr. S. Benet, who has no authority whatsoever. As proven, Mr. Benet has been simply executing orders of some Directory that dictates replacing referees, appointing specific ones in individual matches, punishing dissident ones in order to make an example for others, hosts meetings with foreign referees without him being there etc…
7. Last, the BoD of OLYMPIACOS FC decided to send to supra-national Confederations, UEFA Chief of Football Mr. Zvonimir Boban and UEFA Referees Committee complete footage of the Panathinaikos– Olympiacos match with all calls by Referee Mr. Jakob Kehlet, along with other footage of this current season, and poor performance by low-quality referees who are themselves -and escorts thereof- so dear to the EPO’s establishment.
In the past two days, OLYMPIACOS FC has received thousands of messages with the same contents: our team proved on the pitch it was the strongest one, our fans proved they were the best. In answer to our club fans’ desire, our Board will move to all directions in order to do whatever is necessary and worthy of our Club’s glory. We invite all fans to stand next to our team and protect it from provocations and traps that will certainly be set in all grounds, wherever we play. Our belief in the final objective of winning our 48th championship and 29th Cup is steadfast. In this fight, we are all together and we will ultimately be victorious.
