The security camera footage showing a violent altercation between newspaper publisher and sports club owner Vangelis Marinakis and former government official Grigoris Dimitriadis during Sunday’s EuroLeague basketball final in Athens is “extremely unpleasant,” Justice Minister Giorgos Floridis said Tuesday.
“This is violence in a sports venue,” he told SKAI TV when asked to comment on the incident. “In these cases, the police file a case immediately, because everything that happens in sports venues is prosecuted ex officio.”
Floridis said the prosecutor has requested an analysis of the footage and will soon file the relevant charges, adding that anyone convicted of sports-related violence will have to serve time in jail.
“These sentences are not commuted, nor is the conviction suspended pending an appeal. If someone is convicted by the competent court…they will go to prison. That is the rule,” the minister said.
Greek Parliament approved in 2022 a law tightening penalties for those found guilty of hooliganism and sports-related violance, following the murder of a 19-year-old soccer fan in the northern port city of Thessaloniki by hooligans.
