The Greek Cup Final: The Game That Nobody Wants

 The Greek Cup Final:

The Game That Nobody Wants

By Stephen Kountourou 

In a normal world, the domestic cup competition of each footballing nation is a celebration of the beautiful game between two sides that have battled to reach the final. It caps off the end of the domestic football season with the climax being the trophy lift for the winning side in front of their celebrating fans at a major national stadium. 

Sadly Greek football does not operate like it is in the normal world. Disorganisation, failed promises and the threat of violence have seen the final of the Greek Cup without a place to host it, mere weeks before the match between AEK Athens and PAOK is due to be played. But how exactly did this all start?

During the season EPO President Takis Baltakos and the Greek Football Federation announced that they intended to have the Greek Cup final hosted abroad, to promote the game outside of Greece, increase the revenue from the fixture and give the opportunity for Greek diaspora to see two big sides from the Super League compete for the trophy live.

Countries such as the UK, USA, Germany and Australia were rumoured to have been offered the opportunity to host the Greek Cup final, with Selhurst Park in London as a potential venue in the UK. 

Eventually, the news broke that instead, EPO had an agreement with the Cypriot Football Federation for the final to be played at the GSP Stadium in Nicosia. This was met with generally negative responses from Greek football fans on social media, as the final being held in Cyprus did not reflect the previous ambition of EPO to have the game played abroad. 

Despite the agreement between the two federations, the Cypriot police rejected the proposal citing concern over public safety. This came after requesting data from Greek police about the potential danger of this match.

After this EPO was resigned to having the final in Greece as originally planned. But this was not so simple either. As it transpired, the Federation did not want the final to be hosted in the usual venue of the Athens Olympic Stadium as they owed the people who run OAKA money from the previous final. Which also makes their intentions of hosting abroad even clearer. 

The Panthessaliko Stadium in Volos was the next potential venue. With a smaller capacity of 22,700 seats compared to OAKA, it was suggested that 16,000 fans would be allowed to attend. However, once again the proposal was rejected to host the final in Volos. At the time of writing the Greek Cup Final is three weeks away and there is no Stadium that will host it.

There have been rumours that the AEL Arena in Larissa could host it but the mayor of Larissa, Apostolos Kalogiannis, has requested that there be no fans at the game.

It is understandable, somewhat, the other reasoning behind EPO wishing for the match to be held abroad and why stadiums in Greece and out are reluctant to host supporters of both finalists. Every Greek Cup final from 2015/16 to last season has consistently been marred by major incidents of fan violence in which police were involved. 

The only time this did not occur was when supporters could not attend due to the Covid19 pandemic. This shows not only why EPO attempted to have the final played elsewhere but also why countries who were offered to host the final were not interested. 

EPO, rather than attempting to fix the problems in Greek football, have instead shoved them under the rug in the hope that the problems don’t rear their many heads, but every time they have proved why that simply does not work. 

For Greece to promote the game outside of the country it first must deal with its own in-house issues and make Greek football a credible enough product for other countries to want to host a match. 

Whether that be the Greek Cup Final or the Super Cup if they ever brought that back, these are matches that would be a celebration of the sport in any other country, but in Greece, the final has been passed around like an inconvenience and treated as such too. Even if and when EPO find a place to host the final, this failed project has proven that the issues of Greek football seem unlikely to change any time soon.

@SteveKountourou

Hellas Football