The Age of Football by David Goldblatt

Author:David Goldblatt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

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Irony, tragedy, hubris: ancient Greece gave us the words, and at the turn of the twenty-first-century modern Greek football put them all to work. Irony traces its roots to είρωνεια: eirōneía, ‘dissimulation’ or ‘feigned ignorance’ to the ancient Greeks, and no better word could describe attitudes to either Greece’s accession to the euro in 2001 or the parlous state of Greek football in 2002. The former had been reliant on everyone from the Greek government to the European Commission, from Goldman Sachs to the Bundesbank, turning a blind eye to the statistical sleights of hand required to bring the Greek economy in line with the tough criteria for joining the euro. Similarly, Greek football, never more popular or flush with cash, appeared to evade the laws of economics and jurisprudence, seemingly unaffected by a mountain of unsustainable debt and endemic problems of match-fixing. Stung by the dotcom bubble of 2002 and the collapse of its main TV rights partner, Greek football found itself suddenly impoverished and, having long ago spent the money that would never arrive, begged the government to fill the gap. In an almost unique display of rectitude, and despite a short-lived football strike organized by the club owners, they refused. Even so, with nearly €200 million of debt in Greek football, the long boom in salaries and transfer spending continued unabated. Greek TV aired tapes of Thomas Mitropolous, owner of Egaleo, a small Athenian club, and Yannis Spathas, the head of the Piraeus Referee’s Union, discussing their preferred match results, during which the latter memorably thought, ‘Only Olympiacos and Egaleo should win, and screw the rest of them!’ The Greek judicial and football authorities declined the opportunity to follow those thoughts up.200

If this was all prelude, act one of the tragedy was Euro 2004. But for Latvia, Greece were the most unfancied team at the tournament. Coached by the stern German Otto Rehhagel, they were a side without stars, tenacious, and organized, with a fabulous knack for scoring from set pieces and scraps. It was enough to get them past the French and win their quarter-final, beat the Czechs in the semis, and then the hosts in a final that Greece won 1–0: now it was time for the hubris. Newly elected Prime Minister Konstantin Karamanlis announced that ‘Greece is on the lips of everyone in the world who follows this mass and magical sport called football.’ The Athens Olympics, to be held two months later, would be the five-star gala for the elite, the contractors and the Athenian great and good, but this was the people’s party. Across the nation, in every mountain village, provincial town and tiny island chain, Greece celebrated. Huge crowds, estimated at more than three million, met the squad at the airport, and watched the fire engines provide a guard of honour all the way to the Panathenaic stadium in the centre of Athens. Along the way the crowd sang to Rehhagel, ‘God is German’. Once inside the venerable arena, 120,000 people, including most of the Greek political caste, wildly acclaimed the champions.

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