Marcelo

Wild times at Olympiacos: The Greek club that threatened to quit the league

Nick Miller
May 7, 2023

It has been a fairly tumultuous season at Nottingham Forest.

From promotion to the cold reality of playing in the Premier League, the 29 signings, the sense that beloved manager Steve Cooper is never far from the sack, and now the prospect of immediate relegation. Fans’ heads have been spinning.

But it has been a yoga retreat compared to Olympiacos — the other club owned by businessman Evangelos Marinakis. This will be only the third season since Marinakis bought his hometown team in 2010 that they will not be Greek champions and only the fifth time since 1996-97, but that is way down the list of remarkable things about the last nine months in Piraeus.

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This season has seen four managers, 21 signings, 47 players used, James Rodriguez and Marcelo signed to great fanfare before leaving within months, the club threaten to resign from the league (that their president is president of), accusations of corruption against referees, a club director throwing a miniskirt at the president of the Greek football federation, threatened lawsuits, ultras invading the pitch, a ref being hit in the knackers and an attempt to stop a game by kicking footballs onto the pitch.

It has been a spicy one.

Here is the story of a season that, even by Olympiacos and Greek football standards, has been an eye-opener.

When you do not know where to start with a story like Olympiacos’ 2022-23 season, you might as well start with the most recent bit.

Last week saw one of the big Athens derbies, with league-leading AEK visiting Olympiacos. The score was 1-1 going into the last 10 minutes before a penalty was awarded to AEK for a foul on Croatian defender Domagoj Vida.

This decision did not go down well. After AEK scored from the spot, then added another in the last minute to secure a 3-1 win, a group of Olympiacos officials appeared on the touchline, complaining to Italian referee Davide Massa about the penalty and an alleged foul in the lead-up to the third goal.

That delegation included Marinakis, who was among those who kicked footballs from the touchline onto the field of play in protest. Massa attempted to press on, but eventually decided to cut his losses and blew the final whistle when fans rained plastic bottles and pyrotechnics onto the turf.

After the final whistle, Olympiacos fans flooded the pitch. They propped a ladder in front of the famous ‘Gate Seven’ section where the ultras tend to gather, enabling them to reach the pitch more easily. Fans clashed with police as both sets of players and the officials hastily made for the safety of the dressing rooms.

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For Massa, the dressing room did not provide a safe haven. He wrote in his match report: “As I entered the dressing room in which there were many people, I felt a blow on the genitals without recognizing from whom. No other remarks.”

For the past four years, every big derby in Greece has been refereed by foreign officials — native officials are routinely accused of bias by the competing sides. This season, every game in the ‘play-off’ stage (after 26 games the Greek league splits into two sections; the top six compete to be champions, the bottom eight compete to avoid relegation) has been overseen by UEFA referees from abroad.

That will not be happening in future. This week , UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin wrote to the Greek FA to state that UEFA had “reconsidered its support” for the arrangement on the basis that they must “prioritise the safety of our match officials, who must be kept away from such hostile and dangerous situations”.

Olympiacos took the letter in their stride, releasing a statement that declared “even the blind saw what is happening in Greek football”, referring to the authorities as “hoodlums and outlaws” and that “the whole of Greece was left disgusted”.

This felt like the natural conclusion to a season in which Olympiacos have been engaged in a running battle with the Greek football federation, Elliniki Podosferiki Omospondia (‘EPO’). It has seen them threaten to withdraw from the league due to their conviction that everything is rigged against them.

Throwing a black miniskirt is not the most conventional vehicle to express one’s displeasure. But it is how Olympiacos vice-president, Kostas Karapapas, chose to end a meeting between the six clubs who had reached the championship play-offs — a meeting convened in an attempt to calm tensions between various warring factions.

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It is a long story, but we will attempt a short version. Central to the narrative is the perception of refereeing bias — it has been a massive problem in Greece for years.

There were match-fixing scandals in 2002 and 2011. In 2012, Panathinaikos president Giannis Alafouzos was reprimanded by the EPO for making accusations of bias. A few years ago angry fans smashed the windows and threw a firecracker into the house of a VAR official after a controversial decision. The league was briefly suspended in 2016 after an arson attack at the former head of the refereeing committee’s holiday home.

Olympiacos have been vocal for some time about what they claim is unfair treatment from officials. This came to a head after a late penalty concession against Panathinaikos in November, which allowed their great rivals to salvage a draw.

“With such performance, Olympiacos can win all the games and win the league from there on, but everything that has happened from the first to today’s match is an unprecedented massacre,” said Marinakis.

“It is one of the biggest massacres. From the first minute, with a rigged referee, a rigged federation, Greek football is going from bad to worse.

“I’m happy because all these great players proved they can play very nice football and win, we even beat the referee who from the first minute was rigged. That’s what I have to say, we’re winners in the end.”

Ioannis Vrentzos, Olympiacos board member and former chief executive at Forest, claimed the decision was orchestrated “by a fascist para-state that runs Greek football and is ruled by organised crime”, and it was at that stage they proposed the club should withdraw from the Greek Super League in protest. It was a statement, but not one backed throughout the club — the club’s directors voted and Olympiacos ultimately decided not to withdraw.

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But tension remained over refereeing. Enter Steve Bennett. Yep, the former Premier League referee Steve Bennett, who is now the head of referees in Greece, a position previously held by Mark Clattenburg.

The clubs made a proposal to bring in “elite” referees from other countries for the play-off rounds of the league, which is how Massa ended up being chased off the pitch and taking a blow to his nether regions. In April, that meeting with the top six clubs was called, with Bennett and other officials hoping to settle things.

It did not work — the meeting saw much rancour and little was solved. It might not have been that notable until Karapapas closed the conference by throwing a miniskirt at Takis Baltakos, the EPO president. The exact intention is unclear, but the most likely message being sent was a fairly misogynistic one: that Baltakos should be wearing a miniskirt. “Take it and wear it, a gift from me, I don’t know if it fits,” said Baltakos.

Some claims of justification were made in media outlets, specifically that the colour of the skirt was chosen to symbolise fascism because of Baltakos’ political history. When he was an aide to Antonis Samaras, the former Prime Minister of Greece, Baltakos was filmed meeting with a representative from Golden Dawn, a neo-Nazi organisation, though he claimed an investigation against the organisation was being launched against them by Samaras for political gain.

Baltakos, a lawyer by trade, said at the time he would consider taking legal action, but at the time of writing nothing has come of that.

Olympiacos were invited to comment on a number of issues mentioned in this article, including these disputes. They declined to do so. The EPO did not respond to a request for comment.

Being Olympiacos manager is a precarious business.

Including interims and caretakers, there have been 19 different head coaches since Marinakis took over in 2010. The manager who was in charge then, German Ewald Lienen, lasted four games and was replaced by Ernesto Valverde. Others to pause in the managerial chair include Marco Silva, Leonardo Jardim and West Brom boss Carlos Corberan.

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But the man in place at the start of this season was the exception. Pedro Martins is the longest-serving boss in the club’s history having been in charge for 220 games spanning four seasons and winning the Greek Super League three times.

Despite being champions last term, there were signs that things had gone stale and there was a sense ties should have been cut before the campaign started. Martins remained in charge but was sacked after a humiliating 4-0 defeat to Maccabi Haifa in the Champions League preliminary rounds.

He was replaced by Corberan, fresh from almost taking Huddersfield to an unlikely promotion to the Premier League, but he lasted barely seven weeks, in which he only won two of his 11 games in charge. There was sympathy with Corberan, who some regarded as a good coach and the right man at the wrong time, unable to make sense of the chaos.

There followed a frantic couple of days of Olympiacos hitting the phones, trying to recruit someone for a job that by this stage was not looking particularly attractive. Michel, the Spanish coach who had twice won the league in 2013 and 2014 with Olympiacos and had been out of work since a brief spell with Getafe in 2021, answered the call.

Michel was seen as a lightning rod, a man who could be the calm face of the turmoil going on behind him, and he did a reasonable enough job of stabilising things, on the pitch at least. Recruited to help him as director of football was Jose Anigo, who Forest fans may remember from a brief spell as their head of recruitment before he was arrested by French police over accusations of extortion, which he was ultimately cleared of.

Results were decent after the World Cup break, but after they threw away a two-goal lead to Aris in March, Marinakis made his displeasure known to the coaching staff and the players in the dressing room. Michel promptly resigned and for lack of anyone else, Anigo took over as coach until the end of the season.

If there was chaos in the dugout, it was not much calmer behind the scenes. Before the start of the season, Lina Souloukou, the director of football who had become increasingly influential at the club, left and has recently been appointed to a similar role at AS Roma.

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Additionally, technical director Francois Modesto — another name familiar to Forest fans as their former recruitment chief — departed to take up a role at Silvio Berlusconi’s newly promoted AS Monza. It left a power vacuum at the club. Christian Karembeu, the French World Cup winner who spent three years at the club as a player, is technically the club’s sporting director, although publicly at least his actual responsibilities are unclear.

The process of filling that void did not go brilliantly. Morgan De Sanctis, the ex-Juventus and Napoli goalkeeper, agreed to join from Roma, but having shaken hands on the deal and travelled to Athens, he abruptly changed his mind and instead took a similar role with Salernitana, seemingly for family reasons. Julien Fournier, latterly of Nice, looked like he would join but that went nowhere, so after something of a delay, Anigo came in.

Having nobody in recruitment jobs might slow lesser clubs down in the transfer market. Not Olympiacos. They signed 17 players in the summer transfer window, including five on one particularly busy deadline day, adding a modest four more in January.

One of the things to know about Marinakis is that he absolutely loves a No 10. Forest have three of them, which is small fry compared to Olympiacos. Before the season they already had Kostas Fortounis, a star for most of his nine years at the club and one of the better Greek players of his generation. They also had Mathieu Valbuena, another relative stalwart who has been with the club since 2019.

In came Philip Zinckernagel, who had played in the No 10 role for Forest in their promotion season and was signed from Watford on the recommendation of Martins. He and Corberan did not gel. “I couldn’t see myself playing for him, which is why I decided to leave,” he said at the time. Two months and seven appearances after signing, Zinckernagel joined Standard Liege on loan.

It is also worth noting that Gustavo Scarpa, the Brazilian No 10, was assumed to be heading to Athens after the expiration of his contract at Palmeiras in January, but in the end, he joined Forest. Joao Carvalho, another former Forest No 10, is on their books, although he is on loan at Estoril in Portugal.

They also spent £6million — a pretty penny for the Greek league — on Pep Biel, the Spanish playmaker who arrived off the back of a brilliant couple of seasons for FC Copenhagen, making it four players for one position. On his debut, against Ionikos in September, he was sensational, scoring one and setting up another. The No 10 role looked sorted.

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A week later, they signed James Rodriguez.

The Colombian winner of the Golden Boot at the 2014 World Cup has, it is fair to say, lost his way a little in recent years. The £63million move to Real Madrid did not pan out; a two-year loan at Bayern was not much better; he was a letdown at Everton; and was playing in Qatar for Al-Rayyan before Olympiacos came calling.

There was little sporting justification for bringing in Rodriguez, but the Marinakis family enjoy a ‘prestige’ signing, leaving it up to whoever is coach at the time to figure out the football stuff. The Colombian signed for one year with an option for another and, once he built up some fitness, he started pretty well, even if his team-mates had to do most of the pressing.

But just after the World Cup break injuries scuppered whatever momentum he had, his form disappeared and, by April, losses were cut and they ‘mutually agreed’ to cancel his contract.

Still, Rodriguez was a roaring success in comparison to Marcelo, now 34 and having barely played in his last couple of seasons at Real Madrid. He was greeted like the five-time Champions League winner he is, with 20,000 fans touting various forms of pyrotechnics showing up at the Georgios Karaiskakis Stadium for his unveiling, presented by Marinakis in person.

That was about as good as things got, though. His performances were so bad that Michel essentially gave up on him and despite more media reports that he had been completely revived and revitalised by a meeting with Marinakis, he departed in January having made just 10 appearances.

But wait, there’s more. Sime Vrsaljko, the Croatian right-back who at one time had been a stalwart of Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid, joined as another marquee signing, but his contract was also cancelled in January. He promptly retired and became an agent.

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We could go on. Forest very kindly loaned two of their own 29 signings to Olympiacos, winger Josh Bowler and Korean forward Hwang Ui-jo, who combined for a total of 16 appearances before being moved on.

Aboubakar Kamara, the former Fulham maverick, came and went.

Konrad de la Fuente, a Spanish-American winger, joined on loan from Marseille, played a handful of games, the last of which saw him miss two sitters, and he has not been seen since.

All in all, they had used 43 players by the middle of October and the current total stands at 47.

The question of whether Marinakis is still popular after all of this is a slightly complicated one. On the surface, he still is, with his supporters eager to point out that this is the most successful period in the club’s history and they were nowhere when he arrived.

Recently, Gate7, the Olympiacos ultras group, put out a lengthy Twitter thread bemoaning the state of things but were sure to clarify that they were still grateful to and backed Marinakis for the success he has brought.

And he has brought buckets of success: 10 league titles in 13 seasons. Despite the chaos this term, they will be clear favourites to win it again next year.

But there is discontent bubbling under the surface. While they might not be the most vocal section, there are fans who regard Marinakis’ behaviour — not least the antics during the AEK game — as not becoming of a storied football club.

There is also a perception that attention has been diverted to Forest since promotion to the Premier League. There was a time when Olympiacos cast-offs would be sent to Nottingham, but now it is the other way around. Several Olympiacos officials also have responsibilities in Nottingham, not least Marinakis’ son. Miltos Marinakis is seen as the heir apparent and has been heavily involved in the family business, not least in the recruitment of several players at both clubs, announcing the signing of Jesse Lingard at Forest on his own Twitter account before the official club account.

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His fingerprints were all over some of the glitzier moves at Olympiacos. He was very visible when James and Marcelo signed, but after their signings did not work out, he has been… less visible.

Will things calm down after this season? Unlikely. The success of the Marinakis era in Greece means they are unlikely to change their ways anytime soon.

So tune in again next season. There might be another wild story to tell.

(Top photo: Marcelo being unveiled in September 2022; by Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP via Getty Images)

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Nick Miller

Nick Miller is a football writer for the Athletic and the Totally Football Show. He previously worked as a freelancer for the Guardian, ESPN and Eurosport, plus anyone else who would have him.