By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
Aggelopoulos brothers decided to reply to Panathinaikos and its owner Dimitris Giannakopoulos for everything that happened in the Greek league finals without directly naming them, but referring to him as the “inventor of scum”, as he named himself after the Greek cup final.
The owners of Olympiacos, Giorgos and Panagiotis Aggelopoulos, started their press release by renouncing the part of their fans that created a riot in Game 3 of the Greek finals and didn’t let the game to finish. However the really interesting part comes after that: “It’s a sad reality that the game conditions in Euroleague are different to the ones in the Greek league. It’s not coincidence that our team since 2009, when we started fully owning it, has played in four Final Fours (2009,10,12,13), three finals (10,12,13) and won the title two consecutive times by a magical way, winning also the general respect and awe. In Greece, unfortunately the situation is out of control.
- Lousy refereeing is awarded with the same referees keep calling games and when they retire they get to be members of the central refereeing committee.
- A team president invades the referees’ locker rooms, when they are not calling the game the way he wishes, curses at them and threatens them having his “friends” with him.
- A team affiliated newspaper and other media owned by a team president create an atmosphere of terror against referees, sports authorities and rise the tension between fans.
- For the first time this year there were criminal like attacks in referees’ house targeting their families.
- Journalists that are critical are attacked and terrorized in order to seal their mouth and be an example to the rest.
- A team president says on the record that his team has a 35 million euros budget, but the official balance sheet of the team is just 13 million euros.
- We have had seasons without any kind of doping control (ed. note: due to financial reasons), like in 2010 without any tests during the finals and in 2011 without any tests during the season.
In this morbid environment we won the league in 2012. Without being “the inventors of scum”. We want to believe that this season is the end of a crumbling corrupted system. The river doesn’t turn back. We will continue to fight and be proud for an Olympiacos team which wins title regally and gutsy.
THAT’S HOW WE DREAM OF OLYMPIACOS”.