Scandals & Feuds ·
The Killing of Mihalis Filopoulos
A pre-arranged supporter clash in 2007 left the 22-year-old dead, prompted a nationwide suspension of team sports and was followed by four reported convictions.
On March 29, 2007, Mihalis Filopoulos was killed in a pre-arranged clash between Panathinaikos and Olympiakos supporters on Lavriou Avenue in Paiania, near Athens. He was 22. A women’s volleyball match between the clubs was scheduled that day, but the violence was not simply a confrontation that spilled out of a sporting event: Supporters had arranged to meet and fight before the match.
An iMEdD investigation, drawing on contemporary press accounts and later trial testimony, described hundreds of supporters travelling across Athens on motorbikes with their identifying insignia removed. They arrived wearing black clothing and helmets; some wore bulletproof vests. They carried knives, flares, chains and other weapons. The investigation also reported that the volleyball federation, the municipality and news outlets had warned of the impending clash, but authorities did not act to prevent it.
Filopoulos was fatally stabbed. Seven other people were hospitalized, mostly with stab wounds, according to a contemporary report in The Columbus Dispatch. Amateur videos broadcast on Greek television showed people arriving on scooters, then fighting with bats and knives and throwing gas bombs and rocks. Police seized knives, flare guns, brass knuckles and other weapons at the scene.
The response reached beyond the two clubs. Police raided dozens of homes and supporters’ clubs. The Dispatch reported that 13 people were arrested at the scene and three more later; all 16 were charged with murder, membership in a criminal gang and other offenses. Those were initial charges, not findings of guilt.
The next day, Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis ordered a nationwide suspension of team-sport matches, covering soccer, basketball, volleyball and other sports, until April 13. Although the clash preceded a women’s volleyball match, the clubs drew most of their support from their soccer teams. After an emergency cabinet meeting, government spokesman Theodoros Roussopoulos said, “Violence in sport is something that affects our entire society ... and cannot be tolerated.” He announced plans for tougher sentencing laws and mandatory surveillance cameras at major soccer stadiums.
The criminal case continued beyond those first arrests. A later Athens Times account reported that nine people were charged with Filopoulos’s homicide in May 2007. It said four were subsequently found guilty of his death by a five-member appeals court and received prison sentences ranging from 10 to 16 years. The iMEdD investigation also reported four convictions and the same range of sentences.
For Filopoulos’s father, Andreas, the court proceedings did not end the loss. Speaking to ERT in an interview recounted by Athens Times, he said he went to the cemetery every day. “I can’t see other deaths, other fan deaths, deaths for nothing,” he said.