With great attention and big surprise, we read yesterday’s official statement of Euroleague Shareholders and its Management, which amongst others stated that they no longer want the involvement of the Giannakopoulos family.
Over all these years, we have managed to walk aligned with all the respected clubs and their owners, due to the mutual respect, the mutual recognition and the mutual efforts towards our common goal, which has been to develop the sport we all love and invest in. Due to all the above, throughout these years there has never been any kind of conflict amongst us.
Our family took over Panathinaikos in 1987. Thirtyone years later, and after investing over 350 million euros, we have established Panathinaikos as the most successful team in the history not only of Greece, but by statement of Euroleague itself, the most successful team since the foundation of Euroleague.
During these thirtyone years, we have never allowed anyone to question our family’s ethos, ethics and values. Ethos, ethics and values, that we have passed on to all our team members and, as we believe, to all our fans. Thirtyone years later, we are not going to allow anyone to insult the core values of our family but also of the Panathinaikos family.
Dimitris is the well deserved continuation of our family in all fields, including Panathinaikos leadership.
Euroleague’s CEO should not forget that since 2002 we have openly stated our disagreement with the organizational model of Euroleague. Sixteen years later the poor results have proven us right.
For us in Panathinaikos, our priority is our fundamental values, which are dignity and respect. Financial and game results were always secondary and this is the reason we have been participating in the Euroleague competition throughout all these years. However, over the past few months, we have been treated with lack of dignity and respect, towards not only our family members but also to the Panathinaikos club. This is our main issue that crosses our red line.
Since there is still good will from our side, all organizational differences can be solved, but not the moral ones.
The mutual respect and the mutual dignity shown between the teams and their shareholders, since the beginning of the organization, should be used as an example from Euroleague’s Management. These core values should serve as a beacon for Euroleague Management in order to try and rectify this lack of respect shown towards our family members and the club of Panathinaikos.
We expect this to be done immediately. In any other case we clearly state that Panathinaikos and Euroleague will follow separate paths.
With Panathinaikos greetings,
Pavlos and Thanasis Giannakopoulos
