“During the last days several publications and reports on Panathinaikos’ decision not to participate in tomorrow’s meeting, called by the Sports Minister Stavros Kontonis, appeared. In order to take part in the meeting, Panathinaikos wanted to obtain from the participants a minimum consensus, in order to solve the slightest issues which are a plague of the Greek football.
Panathinaikos requires an absolute transparency in football institutions and has notified the competent bodies about its proposals for upgrading the sport. These proposals constituted the prerequisites for a positive response from the part of Yannis Alafouzos to attend the invitation of the Vice Minister.
What was suggested by FC Panathinaikos:
– Refereeing : A Five member Central Referee Committee, appointed yearly, having a composition with a completely different structure and safety clauses to prevent any underground routes, both by involving a member of the SuperLeague and by establishing the position of a refereeing controller executed by an experienced foreign former international referee. Obviously no referee with pending penal proceedings should be involved in this Referee Committee lists.
– Football Federation EPO: Tidying the administrative pyramid of EPO, having as a main axis the participation in the board of members who are not accused or engaged in litigation and investigations for any involvement in criminal organizations and underground systems lacking of any transparency. On top of that a full control and an absolute transparency regarding the finances of the federation are required. All these are also prerequisites by UEFA, which is very concerned about betting interference and thus calls for complete transparency regarding football administration maters.
– SuperLeague: The President should be a technocrat assisted by a six-member committee which will take care of the everyday SuperLeague issues. Certainly this means that people involved in judicial cases cannot be involved or deal with this presidency.
If there was any intention to solve the above mentioned key issues, then measures to fight violence could be thoroughly examined, as an issue that the Sports Minister has placed on top of his agenda. Panathinaikos believes that violence is the result of corruption and decay prevailing in Greek football.
The above were not assured and therefore the participation of Panathinaikos in a meaningless and ineffective meeting would have absolutely no sense. Even more, since Olympiacos is proving everyday its full support to the current status, its participation in that meeting with Mr. Kontonis is done with the unique purpose to create a pretext dialogue and its sole objective is just to show off, without dealing with the main reasons of corruption of Greek football”.