Evangelos Marinakis has begun his trial in Athens, with the Nottingham Forest owner accused of instigating football violence and supporting a criminal organisation in Greece.
The allegations are in relation to the 58-year-old’s ownership of Greek giants Olympiacos with he and four other board members accused of two misdemeanour counts.
These are over a five-year span between 2019 to 2024 with the quintuplet allegedly instigating violence with statements against authorities and of supporting a criminal group.
As well those aforementioned five, 142 fans face charges of running a crime organisation and causing life-threatening explosions at sporting events.
Within that number, seven have been charged of leading the group. They have all denied wrongdoing.
Marinakis was not present in the packed courtroom at Athens’ high-security Korydallos prison on Wednesday and was represented by his lawyer Vassilis Dimakopoulos.
Speaking to BBC Sport on Wednesday, Dimakopoulos refuted the allegations against his client.
‘The accusations are totally baseless,’ he said.
As reported by Reuters, more than 210 people will testify before the three-member bench during the trial, which lawyers estimate could last years.
The court adjourned for November 25 after the presiding judge read out the names of the defendants and witnesses. Masked police officers guarded a few defendants still in detention.
The probe was launched after the 2023 fatal injury of 31-year-old riot police officer George Lyngeridis in clashes outside a women’s volleyball match between Olympiacos and Panathinaikos, a normally low-risk game.
The fans were arrested in 2024.
‘This is a landmark trial,’ said Vaso Pantazi who represents one of the defendants, adding that her client and others ‘were in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
The pre-trial probe found that before the volleyball match, some of the fans moved a bag of flares and makeshift explosives from a storage room at their soccer stadium to the venue. Lyngeridis was hit by a flare during the clashes and died from his injuries weeks later.
