© Uncredited/InTime Sports/AP/dpa
Ivan Savvidis (front), owner and president of Paok Thessaloniki football club, walks onto the pitch with a gun on his belt
The owner of the football club PAOK Salonika, the Russian oligarch Ivan Savvidis, has been sentenced to 25 months in prison in Greece.
Savvidis stormed onto the field in March 2018 during a game between the first division teams PAOK and AEK Athens to protest against an offside decision. He wore a revolver on his belt, clearly visible. The pictures went around the world, but a court in Thessaloniki has now approved the weapon, the daily newspaper “Kathimerini” reported.
Savvidis had a gun license, it said. So he was only convicted because he illegally ran onto the field in the 90th minute. The public prosecutor had previously argued that players from the opposing club AEK were afraid, and that Savvidis had moved towards the referee. In addition, a weapon has no place on the field – the behavior points more to vigilantism. But these objections were dismissed in view of the club owner’s firearms license.
Savvidis had previously been banned from Greek stadiums for three years by the Hellenic Football Federation and fined €100,000. The Greek media have been puzzling over the whereabouts of the Russian oligarch for some time – he’s not in Greece, but possibly in Rostov, Russia. However, he has already appealed against the current verdict, the Greek state broadcaster ERT reported.