Greek Super League Clubs Must Change Their Recruitment Policy!

The 2018-19 football season has finally concluded as the last international break witnessed Greece embarrassingly lose to Italy and Armenia at the OAKA in the EURO 2020 Qualifying campaign. It is now time to sit back and stay up-to-date with the latest news of transfer deals during this off-season. Speaking of transfers, it has come to the majority of the Greek fans attention that every football season the Greek Super League clubs target and recruit more foreign players than they do recruiting Greek players as well as harming the development of youth players who would potentially become regular starters for their respective clubs. 

CLUBS - SUPER LEAGUE 18/19

Club		Squad	Age	Foreigners	Total Market Value	Average Market Value
		450	26,6 Years	215	£289.58m	£644k
	Olympiacos Piraeus	26	26,9	15	£66.69m	£2.57m
	PAOK Thessaloniki	30	27,7	20	£64.71m	£2.16m
	AEK Athens	29	25,6	13	£34.97m	£1.21m
	Atromitos Athen	28	25,2	11	£17.87m	£638k
	Panathinaikos Athens	32	24,1	9	£15.26m	£477k
	Aris Thessaloniki	30	28,5	14	£12.65m	£422k
	Panionios Athens	29	26,3	17	£10.31m	£355k
	Asteras Tripolis	27	26,1	9	£8.82m	£327k
	OFI Crete	31	26,8	11	£8.64m	£279k
	Panetolikos GFS	26	24,7	13	£8.64m	£332k
	AO Xanthi	27	27,3	16	£8.42m	£312k
	AE Larisa	27	27,8	17	£8.33m	£308k
	PAS Giannina	29	26,3	11	£7.79m	£268k
	PAS Lamia 1964	27	29,5	12	£6.44m	£238k
	APO Levadiakos	25	27,6	15	£5.31m	£212k
	Apollon Smyrnis	27	26,3	12	£4.77m	£177k

The table above as shown from Transfermarkt.co displays in the fourth column the amount of foreign players every club has in their roster and it is PAOK who had the most with 20 foreigners for the 2018/19 Greek Super League season. Though, the table accounts for the amount of players in the squad after the winter transfer window which the foreign player count is calculated to be 215 players out of 453 players. Nonetheless, it also shows where the major problem is when clubs have an excess amount of foreigners. It harms the nurturing of youth players which the clubs do not seem to care about the developmentprogress and their fight to earn match minutes in the first team. Soon after they are released and most of them find themselves playing in the second tier of the Greek football pyramid. This all comes down to the clubs recruitment policies based on targeting the foreign talent more and focused on the Greek talent less. 

Club	Greek	Foreign
Olympiakos	11	15
PAOK	10	20
AEK	16	13
Atromitros	17	11
Panathinaikos	23	9
Aris	16	14
Panionios	12	17
Asteras Tripolis	16	9
OFI Crete	20	11
Panetolikos	13	13
Xanthi	11	16
AEL	10	17
PAS Giannina	18	11
PAS Lamia	15	12
Levadiakos	10	15
Apollon Smyrni	15	12

The second table above shows how many Greek and Foreign players are registered from every club of the 2018/19 Greek Super League. 

Given the transfer restrictions implicated for Panathinaikos that they received before the start of the season, Donis and Dabizas have clearly showcased their business in nurturing young Greek talent. The circumstances the club sufferedduring last summer with Alafouzos it was no doubt the likelihood of receiving deducted points before the season commenced was very high as well as receiving a transfer restriction by EPO. Besides the chaos that surrounded the club, the transfer restrictions benefitted Panathinaikos in their development of Greek talent which has been extraordinary with Chatzigovanis, Mavromatis, Bouzoukis, Poungouras, Emmanoulides, Chatzitheodorides and Kampetsis all earned a great amount of regular games in what was a roller-coaster 2018/19 Greek Super League season for the Greens with the assistance of their foreign contingent of Macheda, Insua, Coulibaly and Johansson.

However, in Olympiakos case they have done a great job in nurturing Leonardo Koutris and Kostas Tsimikas as both players provide great competition for the left back positionfor club and country respectively. But it is not the same at the right back position when Giannis Masouras went out on loan to Panionios as he down the pecking order behind the likes of Torosidis and Elabdellaoui. However, high profile young gun Androutsos has not been given enough opportunity to prove his talent due to his sporadic role in the team. Same with Dimitris Manos, who Olympiakospurchased from OFI Crete was the 3rd striker of the team but would be loaned out to Giannina in the winter transfer window and then signed Argentinian striker Franco Soldano. In my view this transfer business holds two perspectives, first one being the 2nd striker Hassan was on loan from Braga would return to his club in Portugal, come season end Manos would still be the 3rd striker since Soldano will competing with Guerrero for the starting rolenext season. The second perspective is the signing of Soldano was to bolster the attacking options for Martins considering they progressed to the Round of 32 of the UEFA Europa League. Besides, the acquisition of GiorgosMasouras from Panionios and bringing back Bouchalakisfrom Nottingham Forest has proven to be successful for Olympiakos. Questionable transfer business was made this season by the club, especially the Yaya Toure transfer which was the most pointless the club has made in recent history, but they must aim to develop more of the young contingent of Greek players rather targeting more of theforeigners.

The same can be said about AEK as most of the young talent in the roster are down in the ranking order in favour of the foreign contingent in the squad. This season saw Erik Moran and Emit Ajdarevic leave in the winter transfer window, but signing young the 20 year old Bosnian midfieder Sabanadzovic remains a very strange acquisition as he has not featured in any game since his arrival at the club. Who knows what his future holds at AEK. Galanopoulos, unlike the rest of the AEK youth, has been earning a great amount of games since his promotion to the first team for three consecutive seasons. Though, they have several promising youth players that deserve a chance to prove themselves such as Botos, Giousis, Giannoutsos and Sardellis. 

PAOK have the most foreign players and the least amount of Greek players in the roster than the rest of the 16 clubs of the 2018/19 Greek Super League season. Though in PAOK’s perspective was to have the best possible squad for achieving their main objectives, to win the league and once more the Greek Cup. Though, the acquisition of Khacherididid not impress and did not satisfy the manager Lusescuwhen he arrived from Ukraine. Not even El-Kaddouri who is part of the championship winning squad earned regular game time this season but did not provide enough satisfactory performances to earn his place regularly in the starting eleven. They achieved these objectives in what was one of the strongest season’s in PAOK’s history, butthroughout the season Lusescu did not use much of the young talent the club have in the ranks but it was delightful to see Limnios become an important player in the side and we expect to see more of the young attacking winger next season and fulfil his potential. However, the club does great talent in the ranks who also deserve game time such asBalogiannis, Lyratzis, Gaitanidis, Tsaousis, Diamantis and Tsingaras, who featured in the Greek cup only so hopefully next season we get to see more of the PAOK youngsters earn match minutes with the club or out on loan.

As for the rest of the clubs that competed in the 2018/19 season, their transfer business is filled with extreme mediocrity when it comes to recruiting foreign players and ignoring the young Greek talent who are fighting to earn the chance of developing their game and progress further into their careers. The only emerging Greek talents that came into the spotlight was Fotis Ioannides from the relegated Levadiakos and scored 3 goals in all competitions, DImitrios Meliopoulos from Xanthi and is transferring to the champions PAOK, and Dimitrios Liavasfrom Panatolikos, but the rest of the youngsters across the league have not been given the opportunity by their managers to prove themselves and live up to their potential. Therefore, clubs should revise on their recruitment policy and it has been proven time and time again most foreign acquisitions do not meet club expectations and are releasedin the next transfer window, which has become uncontrollable, unbearable and annoying, and places the clubs in unstable financial positions when these foreignplayers depart they are left behind in their payments. That was the case with AEL during the season with former players not being paid the full amount from the contracts they signed. Although they are now all paid, no player from any club they departed from should be overdue in payments. But this issue is related to all Greek Super League clubs not being progressive with acquiring Greek players as they put all the trust in foreign recruitments to thrive and bring success.

Furthermore, all that surrounds the problem with foreign players it also heavily impacts the national team, most particularly concerning the right back position, and it was clearly exposed with the losses against Italy and Armenia. Our only option for the right back is Michalis Bakakis from AEK, but have no other option for back up and reverting to calling up a failed talent in Charis Mavrias and unexpectedly Kotsiras from Asteras Tripolis. Though there is Torosidis, but is done and dusted for internatonal duty and the young right back Lyratzis from PAOK or even Giannis Masouras from Olympiakos can fill in the options for the right back spot in the future. It is a major player development issue Greece is currently experiencing as there are limited options for the role in the national team and is forced to call up players such as Mavrias and Kotsiras to fulfil the right back position, which is absolutely mediocre.

Unfortunately, nothing has been done by the EPO to act on restricting the amount of foreigners for the club rosters. It is without a doubt the foreign recruitment block the development of Greek players in the top flight, which has now become frustrating with the clubs having no faith whatsoever on these young players as they deserve much more. To restrict clubs from acquiring excessive amount of foreigners and show a balance of developing Greek talent, EPO must introduce a squad cap rule to allow clubs revamp the recruitment policy that is currently harming the development of Greek youth players in each club. If there was a squad cap rule it would benefit all clubs to assess the foreign and home-grown players on the roster and allow clubs to judge whether the players are fulfilling expectations. 

As Panathinaikos were given a transfer restriction to buy any Greek player under 23 but only permitted to sign 1 foreigner (Federico Macheda), they clearly showcased how to develop Greek players and assess whether they are progressing or not living up to their potential. This transfer restriction can be improvised with a few tweaks if this rule was implemented for the league, but goes to show the restriction worked a treat for Panathinaikos, setting an example for the league that every club should follow. However, they had 9 foreigners in the squad, along with Asteras Tripolis which was clearly enough to encapsulate the assessment of Greek players for the season and also balanced the squads. 

If the squad cap rule and the transfer restriction is applied in the league, Greek football would be thriving with the talent the clubs are developing and giving opportunities to prove their worth and progress further into their careers. Unfortunately, we are not seeing enough of the Greek youth being awarded the opportunity to be featured in the first team for their respective clubs.