By Andrew Warshaw
April 19 – AEK Athens are set to be relegated from the top flight of Greek football for the first time in their 89-year history after a points deduction handed down for crowd violence left them stranded near the bottom with one match remaining.
As expected the Greek Super League’s disciplinary committee came down hard on AEK after their match against fellow strugglers Panthrakikos at the Olympic Stadium last weekend was abandoned.
The game is being recorded as a 3-0 loss for AEK, who were deducted three points from the current campaign and two from the next as well as being slapped with fines totaling €4,000.
AEK, who desperately needed victory to help their survival fight, fell behind late on when defender Mavroudis Bougaidis turned the ball into his own net prompting a mass pitch invasion. Both sets of players ran for the safety of the dressing rooms as play was halted. Police and security officials moved in to clear the pitch but after a further 90-minute delay the game was called off.
AEK have been operating on a shoe-string budget after a period of financial turmoil and are seeking new investors. In another blow to their image, midfielder Giorgos Katidis was recently banned for the rest of the season – and from the national team for life – for his infamous Nazi salute goal celebration.
The points deduction leaves AEK five points from safety ahead of their final match against Atromitos on Sunday. If the decision remains unchanged after appeal, one of Greece’s most prestigious clubs will suffer the humiliation of being demoted to the second division.
In a statement published on the league’s official website, the disciplinary committee said it accepted referee Stavros Tritsonis’ report which said the game had to be called off due to the “unusually catastrophic state of the pitch and surrounding area”.
The league added that it found the club culpable because AEK had “failed to take appropriate measures for the safe conduct of the match and for the overall maintenance of order”.
AEK denounced the decision as a “pre-meditated crime by a corrupt system” and said they would appeal.
“Today the disciplinary body of the Super League has decided to deprive us on paper of the right to fight for our salvation,” the club said.
“The corrupt system has found AEK guilty… This represents a pre-meditated crime with the perpetrators in principle Tritsonis and the disciplinary committee… and other instigators of a septic system.”
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