Championship Gets Legal in Greece
By: chris | April 21st, 2008
Who doesn’t love a good championship celebration in the courtroom? Greek football was forced that route this season after Olympiakos contested a 1-0 loss to an Apollon team fielding an ineligible player (Roman Wallner, who’d already featured for two Scottish sides). The result was massive because AEK Athens had won the title by just one point over Olympiakos, meaning an overturned result would crown Olympiakos champs. Well today, the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned that result and bam, Olympiakos won the title.
What makes this more extraordinary is that Apollon is terrible. They were going to get relegated anyway, either bottom or second-bottom in the league, so this result was easily their greatest of the season. The win was relatively astounding, given the fact that Olympiakos lost a whole two games all year, and would have surely come down as a championship decider regardless.
The biggest loser is obviously AEK Athens, who managed to steamroll the end of the fixture list (4-0, 3-1, 4-0, 2-0) to take home the title - including the, at the time, decisive 4-0 victory over Olympiakos in the fourth from final game of the season - only to have the trophy ripped from their hands. They now have to go through a playoff tournament to see if they go to the Champions League or UEFA Cup. So if Roman Wallner turns up dead, you know where to look.
Making matters worse, AEK Athens pretty good player Rivaldo has threatened to leave if AEK Athens are not handed the title:
“If we are not vindicated I will ask the club president (Demis Nikolaidis) to release me from my contract so I can leave Greece. I will probably go back to Brazil to finish my career.
A team that was not good enough to win the title on the pitch does not deserve the trophy. Football is a beautiful sport and should be played on the pitch.”
Terrible, terrible day for AEK Athens, pretty good one for Olympiakos.
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Comments
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What a horrible way to lose a title. I don’t see why a player can’t play for three teams (especially in different leagues and including loans) in a single season. It’s an asinine rule, and for Olympiakos to use it to get past the fact that they couldn’t handle a relegation side is shameful. Roman Wallner is not the sort of player that makes a relegation side better than a championship side. Utter nonsense.
Posted from
United States
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Yeah, title, whoo, but I’m frankly embarrassed that it had to happen this way. I’d rather have seen AEK take it than this.
Posted from
United States -
A sad tale but it would have been better for the title to have been won by AEK Athens instead. Its always good to win on the pitch and not in the courts but Olympiakos had to do whats best for them.
Posted from
Australia -
lol!
Posted from
United States
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