President of the Police of Thessaloniki: “Hooligans are private armies of football players”

On the occasion of the events of the last few days, Theodoros Tsairidis spoke at the trial, conveying the policemen’s position on the phenomena of violence. The president of the Thessaloniki Police Union commented on the government’s announcements about the measures against fan violence and pointed out that what the police want is for their role to be auxiliary, like in other states, with the guarding of the stadiums passing into the hands of security.

What Theodoros Tsairidis said in detail:

If he has information about the health of the 31-year-old police officer:

“He continues to be in an extremely critical condition, the wishes and prayers of the entire police force and I think the entire community are with him so that he can win this difficult battle for his life.”

On the mobilization of the police and where the disagreement lies on the government’s measures: “In principle, we did not hear anything new. The fact that we talked about electronic tickets and cameras again means that the state is admitting that it does not implement the laws it itself voted for. At the moment there is a law that says that if there is no closed circuit, any sporting event should not be held if there are no cameras in the stadiums. So, implicitly but not clearly, we admit that cameras are not working in all stadiums at the moment.

Also, they say about the electronic ticket. Is the e-ticket not valid? If we want to get a ticket, don’t we have to provide our name and our AMKA? So what are the announcements? The fact that the doors to the Super League are closing for 2 months. First and foremost, these episodes took place in volleyball. What exactly will change?”

Because the vast majority of incidents take place outside the stadiums:

“And on August 16, when the measures were announced, we said, based on official data from Thessaloniki, that 1 out of 30 incidents related to fan violence were inside stadiums and the remaining 29 were outside. In Thessaloniki, the rendezvous of Aris and PAOK fans at midday in a central part of the city was canceled again. Unfortunately today we heard once again that with aspirin we will fight cancer. They pay us through the state budget, that is, the state itself comes to pay the police to become security guards for private companies.”



If the security guards have to take over guarding the stadiums:

“We want the role of the Police to be like in modern European states, We don’t make things up from our heads. This is done in all the stadiums in Europe, the Police work as an auxiliary, to facilitate the fans to go and leave the stadiums safely and where there is a disturbance of the order to intervene. And of course also inside the stadium if it is required and necessary to save human lives, he will intervene.

But our role must be primarily supportive. Hundreds of police officers cannot be wasted right now doing security, body checks and ticket checks at sporting events. In the rest of the countries that really wanted to solve the problem of fan violence, first of all the group actors with the help of the state solved it. Here the agents themselves do not want to solve the problem.

We made many suggestions, one of them was to turn the organized gates into family stands. If they are really against these fan armies and murderers who sent a policeman to fight, they murdered Alkis Kampanos, the Croats who marched all over Greece with Michalis Katsouri, all these victims of fan violence. If they wanted to solve the problem they would solve it.”

If these fans are private armies of football players:

“I have no proof but everything shows that these criminal groups, because they are criminals and murderers, are exploited by football agents. If our colleague had not been injured so seriously as to highlight the magnitude of the murderous attacks we receive, we would have had the same ones we had on Sunday in Volos.

At that time, the police officers received similar attacks, but then the Police were targeted for the tear gas. How else can we deal with these criminal groups? At some point the world should realize that the squads that use tear gas have the mildest means that the state grants them so that we can deal with these criminal groups in the mildest way.

On the part of the Police, the knife should go deep into the bone, the operational planning should be specific, we should not operate with phobic syndromes towards these fan armies. And at some point things will have to be told by their name regarding the Hellenic Police Force. They cannot one day be top officers of the Corps and command the Greek Police and the next day be employees of the PAE and the KAE”.

How the police are dealing with the situation with the government’s announcements:

“I have served 20 years in the MAT and I have experienced them in the worst way. I have seen a colleague get burned by a molotov in a stadium. I have seen colleagues break arms and legs in the field.

So we speak through our experiences and not through closed doors and offices where we see a screen and think it’s a movie. Beyond that, there is anger and resentment about the measures and we feel mocked. Because we can’t keep saying the same things over and over and nothing being implemented. We haven’t heard anything about the unhooking of police forces from the stadiums. A bill is currently under consultation which says that the state will pay us 30 euros.

We don’t want 30 euros, our lives don’t cost 30 euros and we don’t want to become security for 30 euros. Even the security guards don’t get 30 euros when they go to the stadium. But it’s not about money, it’s about dignity. I’m leaving my family and going to serve the citizen because that’s what we swore to do, to serve the citizen and provide him with a sense of security, not to provide services to nameless companies that will target us whenever it suits them and kill us whenever it suits them they are being exploited to save money.”

Where can we look for the moral perpetrators of these fan attacks, in the PAE presidents, in the government, in the leaders:

“Generally at all the levels mentioned. I won’t disagree with anything. When team presidents come out and justify the incidents for a refereeing decision, it happens nowhere else on the planet because a referee made any mistake that games are stopped, firecrackers fall that maim our fellow human beings, the entrance of dozens of fans into the stadium is justified and the Police are blamed.

Where are these happening? And I tell you that if they themselves wanted to abort them they would have aborted them. At this moment there is no will. And the bad thing is that human blood is spilled. The issue is not that the blood of a policeman was spilled, the blood of 19-year-old Alkis Kampanos was spilled, the blood of 29-year-old Michalis Katsouris was spilled, the blood of Tosko, Nasos and many others was spilled. How much more blood must be spilled in this country for us to finally do the obvious?

Every three or so we refer to the outside world and the modern European states. At some point, let’s call on the rest of the modern European states where fans throw plastic cups and expel them from the stadiums for life to deal with fan violence. Here they throw firecrackers, torches and anything you can imagine on the pitch and nothing happens. How come the players themselves, the fans themselves, when we talk about European games, that their stadiums are churches, let alone when they go abroad because they know that nothing happens there. And if you threw anything at a policeman or a beer on the field, they took you in.”

In closing, Mr. Tsairidis added: “I have experienced the Orphan Law because I was a witness at that time in court. When they realized that they are being arrested for fan violence, for incidents inside and outside the stadiums, and that the next day they end up in jail, then the stadiums became churches. Why is the Orphan Law not reinstated? They stopped it in 2009 and since then until 2023 we have changed the legislation 100 times but the Orphan Law has never been reinstated. Other governments also had opportunities to bring him back.”