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Greece is not taking part in the Korea-Japan 2002 World Cup, an event that will keep soccer fans around the world riveted to their TV screens throughout the month of June. Failure to qualify for the finals of the world’s most important tournament is the least of Greek soccer’s problems, however. Longstanding suspicions of rampant corruption appear to have been substantiated recently, and the allegations point to the country’s most popular club, its powerful president, and, indirectly, the government itself.

With few exceptions, Europe’s soccer powers saw a smooth end to their domestic tournaments, brought forward in order to allow the national teams to prepare for the World Cup. Throughout the continent, the finale of the domestic tournaments was attractive and exciting and, as a special bonus, produced new champions. Even traditional powerhouses such as Manchester United and Real Madrid had to step aside as titles went to lesser-known pretenders.

Not so in Greece, where frustrating and inexplicable refereeing decisions provoked crowd violence toward the end of the season. Somehow, Olympiakos Piraeus came from behind and pipped AEK Athens at the post. Olympiakos won the championship for a record sixth consecutive time, eliciting a loud chorus of protests from fans of every other team in Greece and especially archrival Panathinaikos. Greek fans will at least be spared the spectacle of their national team battling against the odds in Korea and Japan.

The Greek national team has made it only once to the World Cup finals since the quadrennial tournament began back in 1930. The momentous occasion was the 1994 finals held in the United States. The team arrived on this side of the Atlantic followed by an unusually large entourage of coaches, administrators, and soccer officials, many accompanied by their spouses. They were all feted by Greek American organizations in New York, Boston, Chicago, and elsewhere. Alas, the number of times the players went to Greek American banquets outstripped the occasions they penetrated into their opponent’s half of the field during the actual games. Sadly, the Greeks lost to Argentina, Bulgaria, and Nigeria without scoring a single goal.

The distractions off the field plaguing Greek soccer since then have been far more sinister. While the national team slowly re-tooled and regained some of the respect lost in 1994, the domestic club tournaments have become deeply mired in suspicions of corruption and allegations that the championship is rigged. Assumptions that referees have accepted bribes have led to ugly scenes of violence in games between the top teams over the past few years.

In the fall of 2000, the then-undersecretary for sports, George Florides, admitted that a “soccer Mafia” existed in Greece that was bent on bribing or blackmailing referees and club officials in order to obtain favorable outcomes. This was not news for many fans that have witnessed the scandalous help that large and influential teams receive from the man with the whistle.

Following this official admission, in an attempt to restore some legitimacy to Greek soccer, authorities introduced a new, more impartial way of selecting referees. But the behind-the-scenes operators were obviously ahead of the game and the scandals continued, as did the crowd violence their decisions provoked. Referees routinely leave the field under heavy police escort. For some, that is not enough. The referee of a crucial game between title contenders Olympiakos and Panathinaikos was carried off last March bleeding from a head wound.

A few days later, a popular television talk-show host, Makis Triantafyllopoulos, played tapes of secretly recorded telephone conversations that included explicit references to game-fixing and bribes to referees. The dramatis personae of the tapes included Thomas “Uncle Tom” Mitropoulos, a board member of Olympiakos and later a major shareholder of Egaleo, an Athens soccer team. In the most frequently quoted phrase since the tapes were made public, Mitropoulos apparently tells a referee, “Hey, don’t you worry about a thing! We want Olympiakos and Egaleo to win, the others can go fuck themselves.”

Others mentioned in the taped conversations included the president of the Piraeus Referees Association, who was shot in the legs by unknown persons a couple of years ago. Another was a referee who was beaten up, also by unknown persons, apparently because he did not follow their suggestions about which team he should favor in an AEK Athens versus Aris Thessaloniki game. The Greek press usually describes such shady dealings as the work of “invisible networks,” but this particular group of conspirators acquired the name paranga (or shack), an evolution of the original nickname, Uncle Tom’s cabin. This was a reference to Thomas Mitropoulos’s office, where the gang members allegedly met to hatch their plans.

According to Kathimerini, the reputable Athens daily, however, this particular Uncle Tom’s cabin was not restricted to lowly characters. If Mitropoulos’s machinations were meant to benefit Olympiakos, then one would assume that the team’s powerful owner, Socrates Kokkalis, had to have been in the know. As the investigation is only beginning, no one has yet dared to make any explicit accusations about one of Greece’s most powerful men.

Kokkalis, whose father was a prominent figure of the Greek left during the 1940s, has now become one of Greece’s most prominent businessmen. His telecommunications company, Intracom, is an exclusive supplier to OTE, the Greek telephone company, both domestically and abroad, where OTE is expanding rapidly. Intracom is also a major defense contractor. Kokkalis himself grew up in East Germany, where his father was a political refugee. His opponents say he used ties to the East German security agency, the Stasi, to further his business operations, which have gained him the 421st position on the Forbes list of richest people in the world. His wealth is estimated at $1.2 billion.

Prudently, Kathimerini’s reference to Olympiakos did not mention Kokkalis by name. All the newspaper did in fact was publish an article about the paranga’s workings, along with a photograph of Mitropoulos sharing a joke with the Olympiakos owner in the VIP section of the Olympic Stadium in Athens. Meanwhile, the opposition New Democracy party has its own beef with Kokkalis, depicting him as the embodiment of the so-called “special interests” that enjoy privileged and lucrative relationships with PASOK. Last December, Prime Minister Kostas Simitis announced that he had turned down Kokkalis’s proposal that OTE merge with Intracom – a small sign that the government was feeling the heat.

New Democracy upped the ante, however, demanding a probe into the contract signed by the government giving Kokkalis exclusive rights to market the Xysto, the scratchable lottery ticket. The government rejected this call, but, finally, in February, the prosecutor’s office moved against Kokkalis, charging him with espionage, money laundering, embezzlement, fraud, and felonious bribery – all charges stemming from accusations made earlier by New Democracy deputy Elias Kammenos, as well as Kathimerini and Eleftherotypia, another Athens daily.

Kokkalis has furiously rejected the charges, saying that they are the machinations of “well-known circles.” He has promised to fight and disprove them all. His privileged relationship with the government may be more difficult to restore, however. If Kokkalis emerges unscathed from this episode, which he may well do, the other, smaller-scale investigation into soccer’s paranga may run out of steam.

PASOK’s inability to stem the corruption in soccer allegedly initiated by “Uncle Tom” Mitropoulos and company (or whoever else is responsible) is another sign of the ruling party’s unwillingness to displease its friends and clean up corruption. PASOK is dropping steadily in the polls, not because New Democracy looks very impressive, but because people believe they have stayed in power for too long. The same can be said of Olympiakos.

Alexander Kitroeff teaches history at Haverford College and is a contributing editor to greekworks.com, which published his most recent book, Wrestling With the Ancients: Modern Greek Identity and the Olympics.

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