FINALLY READY TO PLAY

The top division Football in Greece had not begun on time this summer as the Government was at loggerheads with the national governing body of the game, but, the dispute has now settled as the permission has been granted for the competition to begin after a delay of about 20 days.

The reason of the dispute was that the governing body, which is named EPO, wanted the appointment of the match officials to be under its control, but, the boards of some of the clubs was in strong opposition of that and had even threatened that in that condition, they would not be letting their teams take part in the competition at all.

Also, the security agencies had let the government know that if the matches were played under the officials appointed by the Governing body, it might lead to the rise of a violent situation with supporters of various clubs launching dangerous physical attacks on each other.

So, to ensure the safety of the public, which it should have, the Government put a stay on the beginning of the competition. But, EPO then agreed to bring in a neutral adjudicator to oversee the appointment of match officials before the fresh elections were held at the start of the next month and it paved the way for the competition to eventually begin on the coming Saturday.

EPO managed to resolve the issue just in time because if it had not, FIFA was contemplating the suspension of it as the policy of FIFA says that none of the associations which come under it should have any intervention in it from the government of that country and what had been happening in Greece was definitely a breach of that policy.

However, by sorting it all, EPO has evaded the suspension.