Moralis: “Injustice against Olympiakos – We cannot be sulky in Piraeus”

Injustice at the expense of Olympiakos and an entire city, he characterized Yannis Moralis the government’s measures against violence and specifically the decision to hold today’s match between the Red and Whites against Baksa Topola for the Europa League.

The mayor of Piraeus spoke to Channel One of Piraeus about all the developments of the last few days and spoke of measures without knowledge of fan violence, that he wishes the best for the policeman’s health while he pointed out that they cannot remain silent in Piraeus and not express their annoyance at the wrong measures – as he called them – concluding that a league suspension would be preferable as was also decided in Turkey after the violence of the team president.

“Governments have always lacked the necessary knowledge to deal with the phenomenon of fan violence, they have not studied the issue and take some impressive measures when we have a dead or injured person that in most cases are not even implemented“, he initially stated and continued:

“They should invite people who have attended UEFA seminars who know the measures taken by other countries in this matter. Who says there are no police in England, Germany and other countries? Is it the same legal framework? Do security companies have the same responsibilities? Do we have the same facilities? The same legal framework? Absurd comparisons are made. Obviously it’s not the same. The treatment is not easy and requires long-term planning, seriousness and consistency. The police say: we don’t want to do body searches, but security companies don’t have the training and the ability to do physical searches on people who refuse or have aggressive behavior, nor do they have the ability to make arrests. In the stadiums abroad there are two fences before the entrance where the specific checks are made and especially in the first one the police are present and with large forces. This does not exist in Greece. We have violence throughout society and they are taking measures impressively with long-winded statements which are not implemented. The point is to deal with the issue fundamentally”he emphasized.

Giannis Moralis commented on the fact that Olympiacos will not have spectators in today’s match…

“It is paradoxical that on Tuesday we played volleyball with people, today we will play in football the crucial European game with 10 people, while tomorrow at SEF we will play a European basketball game with 12,0000 people. What is the logic of the measures? Why doesn’t Olympiacos play with people like the other Greek teams? Aren’t the friends of Olympiacos and a whole city challenged by this? Isn’t Karaiskaki, together with the AEK stadium, one of the most modern stadiums? The 10 people who will enter the stadium today do not cover the needs for the PAE Board of Directors. Not even I, as Mayor and Vice-President of Olympiakos, can go to the stadium at night.” emphasized and continued:

“In Karaiskakis we organized the final of the European Super Cup and received congratulations. There is social violence, as we often see in universities. What should we do, that is? Should we close the universities too? How can there be collective responsibility? If there are incidents at the Polytechnic, would we bring them all to court, maybe find the culprits, or would we close the Polytechnic as well? The 200 names of tough hooligans were correctly given so that they could be identified with various cases. But did we find these 200 names on Saturday? Why were they not given sooner so they could be caught and possibly punished? Here we don’t even have horizontal measures that are presumptively unfair. We have selective measures at two levels. Different treatment per sport but also different treatment per team”.

The Mayor of Piraeus characterized as a major issue the restoration of the health of the 31-year-old policeman wishing “to win the difficult battle for life” and he was clear about the attitude that the representatives of Piraeus in the parliament should take in relation to the injustice against Olympiakos and its fans, stressing that:

“…we can’t be dumb in Piraeus and as far as the Ministry of Citizen Protection is concerned, I repeat that its decisions were blatantly wrong, because the measures should have been better thought out and the least they should have ensured was justice and equality”.

Finally, Yiannis Moralis emphasized that if he himself were to make decisions, he would “what they decided in Turkey, where the championship was suspended with equality and not behind closed doors. During this period we should discuss, there should be a serious consultation and then we should move forward”.