Violence poses image problem for Olympic hosts

With the Greek soccer season only a week old, the rowdy state of the nation's favourite sport is once again damaging the international image of the next Olympic hosts.

A week that started badly with hooliganism marring the first matches, continued with six clubs narrowly avoiding relegation by FIFA because of chronic debts and with a vicious physical assault on a senior soccer federation (EPO) official.

"The federation calls on politicians and all sane football forces to firmly resist these destabilising networks and to protect the public image of sport," the EPO said in a statement on Thursday.

The statement followed a brutal attack on EPO vice president Aristeidis Stathopoulos outside the federation's Athens headquarters by two men wielding iron bars last Tuesday.

They left the 65-year-old Stathopoulos in hospital with head injuries.

The attackers were stopped from inflicting more serious harm only by the intervention of a passer-by, according to EPO officials.

The attack was the second of its kind in less than 10 months, with another federation official Thanassis Panayiannis previously beaten up on the same busy Athens street in broad daylight.

"These attacks are clearly designed to terrorise federation members into stopping their efforts to consolidate the credibility of Greek football," EPO said.

The credibility in question was left in tatters earlier this year when a series of audio tapes purported to be recordings of officials and club representatives agreeing to fix matches were played on national television.

STONE-THROWING CROWD

The impact of continued allegations of match-fixing has been a steep decline in attendances and an increase in hooliganism.

Panathinaikos were lauded as national heroes after reaching the quarter-finals of the Champions League in May but were greeted by a stone-throwing, jeering crowd last Sunday after returning from a 4-1 defeat to PAOK Salonika.

"It's inexcusable. They (supporters) can't go about behaving in this way," Panathinaikos's Danish international Rene Henriksen told the Greek daily To Vima.

The only soccer ground in the country guaranteed to provide safe refuge from the violence is the Olympic Stadium, which will not host matches this season as work begins on renovations at the main 2004 Games venue.

The Greek government responded to the crisis last week with a sports bill designed to crack down on hooliganism and establish independent authorities to ensure transparency in the running of debt-ridden clubs.

Just as Stathopoulos was being attacked on Syngrou Avenue, Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos was across town unveiling the final draft of the legislation.

The question of who controls the game in Greece has been top of the agenda since FIFA came within hours of expelling the national team from World Cup qualifiers in June 2001 in protest at heavy-handed government intervention in football.

FRAUD CASE

Greek soccer has been the domain of major industrialists since shipping magnate Vardis Vardinoyiannis purchased Panathinaikos in the early 1980s and entrepreneur Giorgos Koskotas followed suit at local rivals Olympiakos.

Koskotas later lost control of the Piraeus club after being sentenced to 10 years in prison for financial crimes in one of Greece's highest-profile fraud cases.

Telecoms billionaire Socrates Kokkalis now owns the Greek champions and his team are the main target of match-fixing allegations after winning six consecutive championships.

Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is the latest figure to step into this controversial mix after expressing an interest in buying a stake in financially-stricken PAOK Salonika.

"Negotiations are going extremely well and we expect to have a solid answer after September 1," PAOK director Christos Grozoudis told Reuters last week.

In the shadow of these developments the national team begin their bid to qualify for Euro 2004 in Portugal against Spain on Saturday at Panathinaikos's city centre Leoforos Stadium.

That is the ground that in March witnessed a bad attack on a referee after the Athens derby between Panathinaikos and Olympiakos.

Referee Antonis Efthymiadis was led from the pitch by police bleeding from a head wound after Panathinaikos players, supporters and staff rained blows on him following the award of a controversial injury-time penalty.

Greece is hoping for a good Euro 2004 qualifying campaign to give momentum to their joint bid with Turkey to host the 2008 championship.

But ticket sales have been so slow for the visit of World Cup quarter-finalists Spain that EPO have offered free Greece shirts to the first 10,000 supporters to arrive.