Karapapas: “There was no objective injury – Panathinaikos decided to leave on its own”

Costas Karapapas, who testified as a witness in the derby trial, spoke of dizziness which is… subjective and not an objective injury to Huancar Olympic–Panathinaikos which was interrupted for throwing a firecracker. The vice-president of the red-and-white PAE accused the referee of an arbitrary judgment and stated that the doctor was working under pressure, stressing that the home team should not be punished for an injury that cannot be proven.

“I am the vice president of PAE Olympiacos, I am one of the few people who have seen all the games of my team up close in the last 13 years. What I have to observe, I have experience of what happens in a match. In this game, because I am a representative, I have accreditation for all venues, I am also a representative of the team. I have seen all the incidents. Olympiacos scored a goal, there were celebrations all over the stadium. There is a lot of tension, celebrations, we realized that in the warm-up area, one of the 15 people who were there, was on the ground. When there is tension I do not perceive anything. I only understood Mr. Vlachos running to the spot“, he initially reported and added:

“From what I learned and saw it was Huancar who had fallen to the ground. Together with us, the team doctors and the match doctor moved towards him. Said the doctor of the League “let’s go to the doctor’s office and see what he has”. The stretcher came to take him inside. At that time I saw the PAO team leaving for the locker room. The match was being played, it had not been interrupted. The Olympiakos players went to see what was happening. The referee blew his whistle twice and stopped the match».

He then accused Panathinaikos of leaving… alone from the stadium. “Panathinaikos, therefore, withdrew. Seeing the Panathinaikos players leaving, the referee blew his whistle for us all to leave. There the referee gave 5 minutes to the Panathinaikos players to return to the playing field. He was shouting “5 minutes” for the match to start again. I heard it with my ears, he gestured. The player had no injury, I saw it with my own eyes. They told me his ears hurt because he heard a sound. Security told us they heard a sound and were closer to the scene. I doubt it dropped a firecracker at a point to damage the player, it fell much further».

“The examination is not objective, nobody touched him”

He then questioned the Spanish ace’s injury. “I saw after videos, unfortunately in all stadiums these things happen. Since Sunday we have seen material to expel the fan for life, we don’t even know if he is an Olympiakos fan. The referee told me he didn’t see anything, the assistant from there said I heard something but I don’t know what happened. The doctor said the player said he was dizzy. The examination is not objective. No one touched the player. The referee, surprised by the departure, called the doctor, who said that his hearing has been affected by the sound and we will gradually see how it goes. Then he said that you decide if he is fit or not. The referee says I will go on the pitch and he will blow the whistle if you don’t come“, he said and continued:

“The doctor said that clinically he is ok after an hour, there is tension in the stadium from 35000 people wondering. Panathinaikos was sure that he would not play, he had bought pizzas. The doctor said that the player is clinically fine after 60 minutes. He had received thousands of threatening calls, the man was about to have a heart attack. The player after an hour could hear normally but was dizzy. At first the doctor said it was “ok” but after the pressures and threats he changed it. We as the home team had more pressure because there were 35,000 people outside. The referee asked after an hour for the doctor to write whether the player can or not. The doctor started saying “I can’t tell if it is or not”. At some point, the doctor informed us that Panathinaikos wants to take the player to the hospital. When one has something he will leave immediately, he will not wait two hours to go to a hospital on the other side».

At the same time, he also questioned the reason for the transfer of the player to “Health”. “The test was ‘Do you hear?’, not ‘I hear’ he didn’t say. We didn’t have audiogram machines. We told the doctor, there is no objective injury, one team left, without there being anything objective (eg opening a head). The doctor in front of us did not say to take a player to the hospital. Panathinaikos said to go to Hygeia. We have a contract with Metropolitan and there is an ambulance early on. Panathinaikos did not call any EKAV. Panathinaikos requested that the player go to the hospital, the doctor did not say so. The doctor in the first hour said the player was ok and after the pressure he said I can’t say if he was fot or not fit. The doctor didn’t take a stand at all. The final diagnosis was due to pressure. After two hours Panathinaikos said. who was eating pizzas, that we don’t have a problem playing and the referee who heard it listened and said “now you’re telling us that”? Mr. Butsikaris was also in front».

To the president’s question why the game was finally stopped, Mr. Karapapas replied: “The doctor nowhere says there is an injury. The doctor said “I can’t say”. The doctor is in a very difficult situation, he is blocked. The referee was asking the doctor for an answer which he never got. Players can’t wait to play after so many hours. The doctor realized that with his decision one of the two teams would lose the derby. The referee said that after 2.5 hours the players cannot compete. They will get hurt».

“How to punish Olympiacos for something that exists in the player’s brain?”

He continued, stating why he thinks that Olympiacos should not be punished. “For the first time in history, a team is at risk with a penalty for a non-objective event. The stoppage happened because football cannot be played after 2.5 hours. The players warmed up for 40 minutes. The gymnasts were shouting. Objective injury is to have trauma. They are not always visible, but in the hearing there are certain injuries, such as a ruptured eardrum. When I heard about “labyrinth concussion” I asked and was told there is no such thing. For the first time in my life, a team leaves the field and is not accountable. If it’s the way every time a firecracker goes wrong, a player goes down and a team gets penalized…“, he noted and added:

“There is no paper that there is an injury. After one hour there was no hearing loss. 10 others may have had hearing loss but only he fell on the pitch. Bad, bad, these things happen, but we have so many derbies and you don’t know what will happen. It doesn’t come out of nowhere with an injury, how to punish Olympiacos for something that might be in the player’s brain. Dizziness is not objective. Although many times in the stadiums there are such incidents, if our football enters such a path, you don’t know what will follow, we will fall apart».

Asked, on the part of Panathinaikos, about Olympiakos’ attitude when the derby with PAOK was interrupted in 2018 in Toumba due to Oscar Garcia’s injury from a cash register roll, he replied:In the case of Garcia, there is an injury that was seen by all of Greece. His lips were parted, blood was flowing. It was an injury caught on camera. If you can compare the two injuries, we have a different view. There could not be an opinion of the match doctor with Mr. Garcia because quite simply the match doctor was the doctor of the PAOK academies».

“I’m fit too, but I can’t play”

Of course, there was no shortage of … remarks from Kostas Karapapas. “The doctor never told the referee that Juancar was unfit to fight. The question should not have been fit or not fit. He had to be fit or not to fight. I’m fit too but I can’t play“, he said, while when the vice-president of Panathinaikos, Leonidas Boutsikaris, began his testimony, saying that he was in the suite, he jokingly intervened saying “… maybe you threw the firecracker?”.