When we look back at the images that defined 2018, there's plenty to choose from. But there
was one, so breathtaking in its audacity, that it rightfully went viral. Back in March,
in the Greek city of Thessaloniki, a top of the table Superleague clash was about to end
0-0 between the home side PAOK and AEK, from Athens. Both teams have enjoyed scant success
in recent years as the league has been dominated by Olympiakos, owned by the highly controversial
shipping magnate Evangelos Marinakis (more on him later). Over the previous 21 seasons,
Olympiakos had won 19 titles.
But not this year. This year the league was between the once dominant AEK of Athens, yet
who hadn't won the league since 1994, and PAOK, who hadn't won it since 1985. Whoever
won the game would be in pole position. Throw in a heated rivalry between the capital and
Greece's second city, the combustable atmosphere in PAOK's feared Toumba stadium and a large
number of ultras, and the atmosphere was guaranteed to be fiery.
And indeed it was. So much so that when the referee denied PAOK an 89th minute winner,
the pitch was invaded by incredulous PAOK staff, and in the middle was the owner Ivan
Savvidis. Wearing a gun. Not many people outside of Greece knew who Savvidis was. But here
he was, with a gun on his hip, trying to remonstrate with the referee. The game was abandoned and
the images went around the world. The result of that match, after much legal toing and
froing, was awarded to AEK whilst PAOK had three points deducted. The incident, effectively,
cost PAOK the title, which AEK Athens gleefully celebrated.
But that game in March did much more than bring the title to AEK. It brought Ivan Savvidis,
a Russian oligarch closely aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin – and who bought
a majority share of PAOK in 2012 – out of the shadows whilst highlighting the dysfunctional
state of Greek football; mired by fan violence, knee deep in accusations of corruption and
controlled by the machinations of the super rich.
Ivan Savvidis is very much a self made man. He was born into a poor Pontic Greek family
in rural Georgia in 1959, when it was part of the Soviet Union. The Pontic Greeks had
historically come from the southern shores of the Black Sea, today in modern, northern
Turkey. For centuries the Greek Orthodox christian population had found life difficult under
the Ottoman empire, and had endured purges and forced expulsions. The situation became
most pronounced from the end of the 18th century until the end of the Greco Turkish War, which
Turkey won in, 1922. By the final population exchange agreed in 1923, two million people
were uprooted. The Pontic Greeks fled and found themselves in the what would become
the Soviet Union, where Savvidis was born. In fact, both PAOK and AEK have refugee histories.
Both clubs were formed from recently arrived refugees from Constantinople, now Istanbul,
who built football clubs to replace the ones they had lost.
Savvidis left home at 15 and moved to Rostov on Don, where he got a job rolling cigarettes
at the state owned tobacco company before joining the army, where he served with distinction.
He later graduated from the Rostov State University of Economic in 1988. The details are hazy
about what, he owned at that time, but after the Soviet Union disintegrated, he returned
briefly to Greece before coming back to become the general director when the tobacco factory
was privatised. Donskoy Tabak became one of the biggest players in the Russian tobacco
market. It was reported by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists that
Donskoy gifted one billion cigarettes a year to the Russian army. From there, Savvidis
diversified, setting up Agrokom in 2004 which provided a home for his myriad assets, including
Donskoy Tabak and “the biggest cooked pork meat factory in South Russia” according
to one official biography. He also loved football and was president briefly of Russian team
FC Rostov and then their smaller city rivals SKA Rostov. At the same time Savvidis entered
politics. In 2003 and entered the Duma, Russia's Parliament as a member of United Russia, the
country's ruling party and long time political home of Putin (although Putin chose to run
as an independent in Russia's flawed 2018 presidential elections). He served until 2012.
By then he had turned his attention to Greece, his ancestral homeland, and especially the
northern region of Macedonia.
The Greek financial crisis – which followed the 2008 global recession – decimated the
country's economy, and Thessaloniki was hit particularly hard fuelling the already palpable
resentment in the north of the country towards Athens. But Thessaloniki is also strategically
important. The port is Greece's gateway to the Balkans. So the crisis also presented
an opportunity. Savvidis, after aligning himself with left wing government of Alexis Tsipras,
went on a spending spree to purchase a whole range of assets at a knock down price. He
is part of a consortium that has bought Thessaloniki port, a key strategic asset for NATO (of which
Greece is a member). Russia views NATO as a military threat and combating its spread
is perhaps its biggest foreign policy goal (more on that later too). Newspapers, a TV
channel, tobacco companies, vast tracks of real estate and beach fronts, not to mention
hotels and other business have all been purchased by Savvidis. He has come to dominate Thessaloniki's
economy.
But it was the 2012 acquisition of PAOK transformed him into a local hero. Greek football has
been mired in corruption scandals, violence and allegations of government interference
and favouritism for decades. Much of that came to a head in the Greek match fixing crisis
of 2015. Dozens of officials were arrested and charged for their involvement, including
Olympiakos owners Evangelos Marinakis. PAOK, and its fearsome Gate 4 ultras, had always
seen themselves to be on the receiving end of a vast conspiracy directed from Athens
by the likes of Marinakis. Savvidis was seen as the antidote; a wealthy man, an outsider,
not dependent on state patronage and clean of the corruption that seemed to blight Greek
football. When violence marred a cup semi final match against Olympiakos the following
year, and almost led FIFA to suspend the Greek FA, Savvidis withdrew PAOK from the second
game. “Greek football is undergoing an acute crisis – the healthy parties are fighting
against a well-organized corrupt system,” he later explained in a statement. “Everyday
we are welcoming more supporters of clean football in our ranks. Today we need to unite
our efforts and prove that the need to protect our country’s sporting honour, justice and
decency stands above the interests of a single club.”
Marinakis was cleared three years later of forming a match fixing ring, but is still
awaiting the outcome of a drug trafficking charge related to a ship that was found to
have two tonnes of heroin on it. He has strenuously denied any wrongdoing. When Marinakis bought
Nottingham Forrest in 2017 he said that “the prosecution against me is a product of a plot
and it has nothing to do with the truth.”
But as Savvidis' battles with the Greek footballing establishment was winning over fans in Thessaloniki,
elsewhere questions were being asked about the reasons for his vast investments in the
region, especially key NATO assets like the port, which seemed to correlate with the Kremlin's
wider geo-political interests. A few months after the gun incident, a report from the
OCCRP, a well respected international anti-corruption organisation, claimed that Savvidis had been
funnelling cash in to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, which borders Greece
to the north.
The country had recently changed its government and pledged to join NATO and the European
Union. But this had been prevented by Greece in the past over the name of the country.
Greece believes that there is only one Macedonia, the northern region of its country, and that
FYROM is an attempt to acquire history and territory from Greece. It is a hugely emotive
issue. But the new Macedonian prime minister Zoran Zaev and Greece's Alexis Tsipras agreed
on a deal that would see the country renamed as the Republic of North Macedonia. A referendum
was planned in FYROM to OK the move. The agreement sparked violent protests in Thessaloniki,
often involving PAOK ultras. The Greek government even expelled two Russian diplomats over what
they believed was attempts by Russia to stir up opposition to the agreement. Meanwhile,
OCCRP claimed that Savvidis was funnelling 300,000 euros in cash to nationalist groups
in the Macedonian capital of Skopje, and especially to the feared KOMITI ultras of FK Vardar,
a football club owned by a Russian tycoon Sergey Samsonenko who, by chance, also comes
from Rostov. The money, it was claimed, was used help agitate protests against the name
deal and help thwart Macedonia's NATO ambitions.
Macedonia's prime minister later accused “Russian businessmen” of trying to agitate against
the referendum. Savvidis, meanwhile, denied he had anything to do with it. “We make
it absolutely clear that businessman Ivan Savvidis has nothing to do with the allegations
of this totally false and highly slanderous report,” he said in statement.
Still, on the pitch at least, things are looking better. When PAOK played AEK earlier this
season, PAOK won. Savvidis wasn't there. He's been banned from all football activity for
three years, although that doesn't stop him turning up to the stadium where he waves at
the fans and then leaves before kick off. He does, at least, have other good news to
console him. Earlier this year he sold Donskoy Tabac, as well as his Greek tobacco holdings,
for $1.6 billion to Japan Tobacco.
Ivan Savvidis officially became Russia's newest billionaire.