THE CUP FINAL THAT NO ONE WANTED

The Greek Cup has become so venomous that Serbia, Australia and even Selhurst Park were sounded out in a desperate quest to find a venue for this year's final. FFT went to find out why, and see AEK Athens triumph

- Alec McQuarrie

Be very careful when you go there, a hotelier tells FourFourTwo on the morning of the 2023 Greek Cup Final. Ordinarily, this warning would not come as a surprise. For at least 60 years, the end-of-season showpiece has more closely resembled a street riot than a football match. But not this time, surely.

In the 1962 final between eternal enemies Panathinaikos and Olympiacos, supporters convinced the match was rigged - hurled bottles and flares on to the pitch and delayed the first half by 21 minutes. When the Swiss referee blew to abandon proceedings seven minutes into extra time, with the score still at 0-0 and darkness enveloping the stadium, thousands of spectators stormed the playing surface. There were no floodlights back then, nor penalty shootouts. Fans believed that organisers had succeeded in taking the final to a lucrative replay. But the replay never came and a champion was never announced.

"There's a saying in Greek football: either you win, or the game is postponed," says SPORT24's editor-in-chief Themis Kessaris with a wry smile, acknowledging that things are much the same six decades later.

Italian referee Davide Massa learned that the hard way this April. Foreign referees are regularly brought in to oversee derby games nowadays, to avoid incidents such as the one in 2014, when Greek official Christoforos Zografos was hospitalised by an attack from two masked men wielding iron bars. Massa, then, can count himself lucky to escape with just a quick kick to the crotch as Olympiacos lost 3-1 at home to AEK Athens. In honour of a long-standing tradition, fans threw bottles and footballs on to the pitch when the result became clear. Even Evangelos Marinakis, the owner of Olympiacos (and Nottingham Forest), was filmed kicking a ball into play.