By Matt Scott
June 18 – Olympiacos’s president Evangelos ‘Vangelis’ Marinakis is due in court today to enter his plea in the match-fixing scandal gripping Greek football.
Marinakis faces four criminal charges as one of the alleged ringleaders of the criminal organisation that is accused of routinely rigging match results in the Greek Super League for years.
The charges are:
· Joining and directing the criminal organisation
· Incitement to attempted extortion
· Incitement to a bombing that endangered human life
· Incitement to bribery with the aim of match fixing
· Fraud
Marinakis denies the charges. On Wednesday the former president of the Hellenic Football Federation, Giorgios Sarris, faced prosecutors to enter his plea in the case.
Like the former HFF legal adviser, Theodore Kouridis, before him, Sarris was issued with a travel ban preventing him from leaving the country pending the trial.
Sarris was also ordered to pay a bail bond of €50,000. Whether or not Marinakis faces similar decisions in the case, as things stand it currently seems highly unlikely Olympiacos will face any obstruction to competing in the Champions League competition next season for which they have qualified.
Insideworldfootball revealed on Wednesday that UEFA’s Ethics and Disciplinary Inspector, Miguel Liétard Fernández-Palacios, has waved through the participation of Asteras Tripolis, another club embroiled in the match-fixing scandal, into the 2015-16 Europa League. [See http://www.insideworldfootball.com/world-football/europe/17247-exclusive-uefa-ethics-chiefs-clears-greeks-in-match-fixing-scandal-for-europa-league)
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