Greek soccer league suspended after gun row

ATHENS: Greece’s top-flight football championship was suspended indefinitely Monday, a minister said, hours after the owner of the PAOK team invaded the pitch with a gun strapped to his belt.

“We have decided to suspend the championship,” deputy minister for sport Yiorgos Vassiliadis told reporters after an emergency meeting with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.“It will not start again without a new framework agreed by all,” Vassiliadis said, adding that the government was in close contact with European football body UEFA, which he said had been “shocked” by the incident.

Police have issued a warrant for the arrest of PAOK owner, Greek-Russian businessman Ivan Savvidis, after he stormed the pitch on Sunday, accompanied by bodyguards, to confront the referee in protest at a 90th-minute disallowed goal in a top-of-the-table clash against AEK Athens. The match was interrupted as AEK’s squad walked off the pitch. The goal was later allowed.

Vassiliadis said the government had “fought to clean up” Greek football “and would not allow all this effort to be threatened”. “We await proposals from the federation and the league,” he said. “A tougher framework is needed.”

He did not rule out the prospect of Greek clubs sitting out next season’s European matches, but insisted the national team would not be affected. PAOK and AEK are in a neck-and-neck race for the league title, which would be their first in over 14 years.

Olympiakos have won the last seven championships under the ownership of Greek shipowner Vangelis Marinakis, who, like Savvidis, is one of Greece’s most prominent businessmen. The league suspension is the latest stopgap measure adopted by the Tsipras government to maintain order in a championship spiralling out of control. Less than a month ago, fans of the four most popular clubs — AEK, PAOK, Olympiakos and Panathinaikos — were banned from away games after recurring violence. This was after Olympiakos fans clashed with police on February 4 after a shock home defeat to AEK dealt a serious blow to their title defence.

Yet a few weeks later, another match in PAOK’s Toumba stadium had to be abandoned after a cashier roll thrown from the stands hit the coach of visiting rivals Olympiakos. PAOK were initially docked three points, but managed to overturn the decision on appeal.

A tobacco industrialist with extensive holdings in the northern port city of Thessaloniki, Savvidis controls the city’s top hotel and recently also bought one of Greece’s top newspapers, Ethnos.