FIFA president Gianni Infantino faces serious questions over his handling of the chaos in Greek football.
Last week Fifa appointed the vice-president of alleged Greek match-fixers Olympiakos in a key role.
Theodore Giannikos quit his Olympiakos post to become Fifa’s powerful Director of Member Associations Services.
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Would you believe it, this means he will now also be in charge of the clean-up of Greek football.
His role, according to Fifa, is: “The division’s mission is to provide assistance and support to all 209 members in terms of governance, organisation, infrastructure and football development.”
Giannikos’ paymaster for the last nine years was Olympiakos owner Vangelis Marinakis, who has been indicted on four match-fixing felony charges in Greece.
Marinakis denies all charges. There is no suggestion Giannikos, who has a Masters degree from the London School of Economics, has done anything wrong.
But Infantino’s judgment comes into question. Fifa appointed Giannikos in a key role even though legal matters involving his former Greek employer remain unresolved.
As Olympiakos vice-president, Giannikos worked closely with Marinakis, a man authorities accuse of match-fixing on an industrial scale.
After the Sepp Blatter years Fifa must be clean and LOOK clean.
Marinakis is currently waiting for a judicial panel to decide on a Magistrate’s proposal for him to face trial as the alleged “head of a criminal organisation”.
Olympiakos announced last Tuesday that Giannikos quit his post to join Fifa.
On that same day national media reported that the “football mafia”, as they called it, burnt down the home of a member of the Greek Football Federation’s Referees’ Committee — the three-man panel that appoints referees.
Just days earlier another member of the panel had been attacked in his home. All three men have now quit and the authorities have suspended all Greek league and cup games until an investigation is carried out.
These events come weeks after Fifa boss Infantino, in collaboration with Uefa general secretary Theodore Theodoridis, finally intervened in Greece.
How? By stopping the Greek Federation elections days before they were due to take place last month. The outcome of the elections was widely expected to usher in a new era.
THE FACTS
FACT: In June 2015, when Infantino was Uefa general secretary, European football’s governors allowed Olympiakos to take part in that season’s Champions League, where they faced Arsenal.
FACT: Theodore Theodoridis, son of Olympiakos vice-president Savvas, denied he had any influence in the decision.
FACT: Uefa cleared Olympiakos a day before a prosecutor charged Olympiakos owner Vangelis Marinakis with five felonies.
FACT: Uefa knew when Marinakis’ interview with the prosecutor was due to take place.
FACT: Greek club Panathinaikos appealed against Olympiakos’ inclusion but Uefa went to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and used a legal technicality to force it not to consider the charges against Marinakis.
FACT: Panathinaikos’ appeal was thrown out and CAS did not take the charges against Marinakis into account in the “grounds” of their decision.
FACT: This autumn a magistrate dropped one charge but indicted Marinakis on four other counts as the alleged “leader of a criminal organisation”.
FACT: Marinakis was on the verge of buying Nottingham Forest last summer but talks fell through.
But Fifa and Uefa appointed a “normalisation” committee to run the GFF until the spring. Why did Fifa and Uefa, Infantino and Theodoridis, not allow those elections to take place?
Giannikos’ new Fifa role involves “governance and organisation” meaning, technically, he will be overseeing this “normalisation” committee.
For years amid crowd violence caused by the stench of toxic corruption with highly questionable refereeing decisions, Uefa and Fifa did nothing.
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Sports journalists were beaten up but Uefa and Fifa did nothing.
Fifa acted only when the previous GFF board was ousted in September, after six members were indicted for serious fraud on an unrelated matter.
And they acted by stopping the elections, which were expected to lead to a dramatic improvement. And now Infantino appoints the right-hand man of a man accused of corruption to take charge of the clean-up of that very corruption.
Questions, questions.
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