2015 Greek football match-fixing scandal

In the summer of 2011, the Greek football was under the storm of Koriopolis scandal, a massive match-fixing case with many officials involved. In December 2014, it came to light that the prosecutor Aristidis Korreas had pressed charges against 16 individuals including officials from football teams, the Greek football federation and referees and particularly for offenses including setting up, participating in and directing a criminal organization, fraud, attempted criminal extortion and corruption that were committed between 2011 and 2013.^[5][6] The investigation was initiated by anonymous complaints regarding the bombing of a referee’s bakery and by news reports regarding the appointments of refereeing officials for Super League and Football League matches.^[3][7] The allegations were mainly based on phone calls taped by the National Intelligence Service of Greece.^[3]

In June 2015, suspects were being questioned by investigating judge Georgios Andreadis.^[8] Most of the defendants were forced to stop being involved in any football activity until the trial begins.^[9][10]

On 30 June 2015, UEFA's General secretary Gianni Infantino stated that Olympiakos will keep their spot in the Champions League for the time,^[11] such as Asteras Tripoli FC. Later, the Court of Arbitration for Sport confirmed the participation of Olympiakos in the Champions League.^[12][13] On 17 June 2015, the English sports-site Inside World Football had revealed that UEFA's integrity officer for the HFF (Dimitris Davakis) didn't state to the UEFA's Ethics and Disciplinary Inspector, Miguel Liétard Fernandez-Palacios, the judicial process and the alleged involvement of Asteras Tripoli in the Greek match-fixing scandal of Koriopolis, regarding their participation in the UEFA Europa League.^[14]

According to the Telegraph, UEFA did not respond to a request to confirm whether Infantino's deputy, Theodore Theodoridis, had recused himself from any discussions or decisions about the handling of the Olympiakos case, because of the relationship of Theodoridis's father, Savvas, vice-president of Olympiakos, and Theodoridis Jnr.^[15] Due to the involvement of Olympiacos and Atromitos in Match fixing scandal, both clubs were threatened with relegation by the Hellenic Football Federation (EPO).^[16]

The defendants, including Marinakis, Sarris, Sa Pinto, Stathopoulos etc, were acquitted by the Ethics Committee for the category of match-fixing for football match between Olympiacos - Atromitos.^[17][18]

In 2017 the Judicial Council decided to put 28 individuals in trial with various charges.^[19][20] Among the defendants were Evangelos Marinakis, Georgios Sarris, Stathopoulos, Ioannis Kompotis, Georgios Spanos, Giorgos Arvanitidis, Ilias Spathas and Ioannis Papakonstantinou.^[21]

In 2018 the Supreme Court dropped most of the charges including the allegations of fraud, blackmail, joining and running a criminal organization and bombing were dropped and sent the case back to judicial court for further examination as regarding match-fixing allegations.^{[22][23][24][25][26]}

In 2019 the Court of Appeals Council ruled that a total of 28 people would face trial over unlawful influence of sporting event results.^[9][27] On 28 January 2021, the Court of Appeals unanimously acquitted all the defendants of match-fixing.^[28][29][30] After a thorough analysis of all the elements of the investigation, from the testimony of the witnesses (and the contradictions they encountered) and from the rejection of the pre-investigation conclusion by the lawyers of the accused, the court decided to reject all the accusations.^[31]

^[13]

• Koriopolis
• 2015 FIFA corruption case