It has been a bad week in the cradle of civilisation.
Last Saturday, the Greek national football team were hammered 4-1 by Turkey in a Euro 2008 Qualifier despite taking an early lead. The impact of this result is akin to the feelings in Germany following England's performance enhancing substance-inspired 5-1 victory in München in 2001 only multiplied by a magnitude as the animosity stretches back over centuries. The narrow 1-0 victory in Malta on Wednesday hardly lessened the feeling of desperation.
On Thursday, Olympiakos and Panathinaikos were to meet in a women's volleyball match. Only in Athens could such an event be the backdrop to pitched warfare between hooligans from the two sporting organisations. One death and numerous injuries later and government spokesman Theodore Roussopoulos announced the banning of all professional sports in Greece for the next two weeks.
As we have intimated in previous posts there are many parallels between the state of sport, and football in particular, in Greece and Italy. Indeed, there is a general attitude throughout Greek society that the two countries represent "two nations but one heart". These similarities are unfortunately not always the positive ones of music, culture, arts and philosophy. There is a general perception that their empires of long ago warrant a special status even to this day. And, in sport, the parallels are disturbing.
Firstly, hooliganism is out of control in both countries. The fans of the two big Athenian teams are particularly violent and their animosity is based on fundamental political differences - Olympiakos are representative of the working class port area of Piraeus while Panathinaikos are the capitalist outfit. Notorious groups like PAO-13 are similar to the ultras in Italy in both their attitudes and styles.
Secondly, match-fixing is also a major issue in the Hellenic Super League but the manipulation is not generally in response to betting market liabilities but sporting power. The refereeing of the two major Athenian teams is ludicrously biased and totally accepted as the norm by Greek society as a whole. All other teams are significantly handicapped.
Thirdly, nobody in control of their mental faculties would choose to visit Olympiakos or Panathinaikos as a visiting fan without supportive life insurance. You really would not choose to pick a dispute with these individuals and being on "their" territory represents potential conflict. Once again, in a similar fashion to Italy, the ultras have influence within the club hierarchies and in Greek society. Although there are laws in place to allow the imprisonment of convicted hooligans, a gentle slap on the wrist with some meaningless suspended sentence is the norm.
Fourthly, the owners of the big Greek clubs are the sort of people that you would be advised to count your fingers after shaking hands with. Corrupt, dodgy, psychopathic power merchants often with links to the underworld - think Milan's Berlusconi with a creative moustache and you'll get the picture.
The only pleasure in supporting a team in Greece is if you are either a glory hunter or really attached to your local team (see historical posts on AO Kerkyra and Pas Giannina).
So, will anything change? Tokenistic adjustments (again in the style of Italy) will undoubtedly follow but I don't think I'll be travelling down to the capital for either of Kerkyra's away games to the Big 2.
