Hooliganism does not only cause drama during football matches. A police officer died on Wednesday, after being seriously injured by the throw of a distress flare on the sidelines of a volleyball derby, on December 7 in Rentis, in the suburbs of Athens. Clashes between Greek hooligans then broke out after the boiling clash Olympiakos-Panathinaikosplayed at the Melina Merkouri stadium.
Aged 31, the police officer injured in the thigh was immediately hospitalized and suffered from a hemorrhage, which forced doctors to amputate it in an attempt to save his life. The Athens hospital where he had been treated for three weeks therefore officially announced his death on Wednesday.
Behind closed doors for all football matches until February 12
An 18-year-old man was arrested and admitted to having launched this rocket against the police after the Athens derby. In response, and while violence has largely shaken Greek sport in recent years, the government announced that all matches of the football championship, the sport by far the most affected by violence, would be played behind closed doors until the 12th. FEBRUARY.
Other measures have been announced: the installation in all stadiums of high-definition cameras and electronic entry systems with verification of the identity of supporters. In the wake of this tragedy, the president of the Greek Football League Vangelis Marinakis resigned.