Greek football in danger of ‘Grexit’: FIFA

ATHENS: World football body FIFA on Wednesday said Greece’s violence-ridden championship was on the “edge of a cliff” and Greek clubs faced exclusion from international competition unless authorities took rapid action.

“This behaviour has pushed us to come here to make recommendations,” Herbert Hubel, head of the FIFA committee set up last July to monitor the Greek football federation, told a news conference after emergency meetings with Greek officials. “The Grexit that looked distant is no longer impossible. Greek football reached the edge of the cliff,” Hubel said.

Just last month, the government had banned fans from the four most powerful clubs — Olympiakos, Panathinaikos, AEK and PAOK — from attending away games because of recurring violence.

A few days later, 58 people were handed mostly suspended sentences of 30 months to 10 years in prison for their involvement in a 2011 match-fixing scandal, including a former Greece international punished for illegal betting, an active club chief and two more former club presidents.