Sunday, April 3, 2011

AEK fans force players to take taxis

Just as we thought we had seen it all in Greek football, it managed to
surprise us yet again on Sunday with one more unprecedented incident that shows fans have grown beyond any control and can do as they please.
Hardcore AEK fans forced their own club's squad to go from the hotel to the Olympic Stadium for their match against Atromitos by taxi, instead of the team coach.
The fans forced the players to use seven taxis for their trip to the stadium as a form of revenge for the players' decision to leave the Karaiskaki Stadium two weeks earlier by taxi and not the team coach, for fear of fan action against them if they were all in the coach after the 6-0 drubbing by Olympiakos.
Some 1,500 AEK fans staged a peaceful rally at Nea Filadelphia on Sunday afternoon, protesting against the owners of the club and asking them to leave immediately, but about 100 fans left the rally to pay a visit to the players at the hotel and make them take a taxi to the stadium.
The protest at Nea Filadelphia was organised by a number of AEK fan clubs, though not the biggest one of them, Original Gate 21, which also runs the amateur and the basketball divisions of AEK.



by GEORGE GEORGAKOPOULOS
source: SPORTINGREECE