Panathinaikos Legend Giorgos Vardinogiannis Dies at 90

By Taki Panos

Some club presidents sign checks. A few end up defining an era. Giorgos Vardinogiannis, the man Greek football simply called the Kapetanios, the Captain, died at midday on Friday at the age of 90, as Gazzetta reported. He ran Panathinaikos for 21 years, and the club said goodbye in an official statement that called him one of the most iconic personalities in the history of Panathinaikos and of Greek football as a whole (translated from Greek).

For readers who did not grow up with the green shamrock, Panathinaikos is one of the biggest football clubs in Greece, and the Vardinogiannis years are a big part of why. His family bought the majority stake in the summer of 1979, the year Greek football turned professional, and he took the chair, per SDNA. He stayed until May 2000. In that time the club won six league titles, nine Greek Cups and three Super Cups, figures confirmed by the club and by Sport24.

His life before football explains the nickname. Born on April 7, 1936, in Episkopi in the Rethymno area of Crete, he was one of ten children and chose the merchant navy, graduating from the merchant marine school in Southampton, England, Gazzetta wrote. He became a shipowner and served two terms on the board of the Union of Greek Shipowners. As the story goes, the Captain title stuck after he broke the embargo on Rhodesia, today's Zimbabwe, according to Sport24 and SDNA.

On the pitch, the big nights came quickly. Panathinaikos won the first league title of his era in May 1984 under Jacek Gmoch, and the following season they reached the semifinals of the European Cup before Liverpool knocked them out, SDNA recalled. The club's own statement says those years carried on the road opened by the famous 1971 run to the Wembley final, and it is hard to argue. Greek clubs were not supposed to be in the last four of Europe. Panathinaikos kept getting there.

The run that many fans still talk about came in 1995-96. With Juan Ramon Rocha as coach, Panathinaikos reached the Champions League semifinals and won 1-0 against Ajax in Amsterdam in the first leg, before losing the return game in Athens 3-0, according to SDNA. There were other deep runs too: a UEFA Cup quarterfinal in 1987-88 after knocking out Juventus, and a place in the final group of eight in the first experimental Champions League format in 1991-92, the club statement noted.

The names from that period read like a hall of fame. Dimitris Saravakos, Juan Ramon Rocha, Velimir Zajec, Juan Jose Borrelli, Krzysztof Warzycha and Stratos Apostolakis all played under him, while coaches such as Gmoch and Ivica Osim sat on the bench, per Sport24 and Gazzetta. Off the pitch, he built the training center at Paiania, opened in 1981 and seen at the time as a big step for Greek football. The club also credits his youth academy with producing players who formed the core of the Euro 2004 winning team.

He was a hands-on owner, and he never pretended otherwise. In his last interview, given this summer to the Alpha program Protagonistes and recalled by Gazzetta, he said he did not want agents and handled the transfers himself. "I was a passionate president, but I never lost the identity of a fan," he said, and on squad building he added that "no big team makes more than four or five signings every year" (translated from Greek). He also admitted he carried a gun, for reasons that had nothing to do with football, and called the stories of him reaching for it mythology.

His relationship with the fans was not always warm. Sport24 described a bond that went through a thousand storms, including clashes with Gate 13, the club's best-known supporters' group. SDNA noted that he enjoyed huge praise in the good years and heavy criticism in others, and that the changes he made to the squad after the 1996 semifinal put him at odds with a large part of the fan base. Big personalities tend to split a room. He split a stadium.

The ending was as sudden as anything in his tenure. In May 2000 he called a surprise press conference at Paiania and announced he was leaving, Gazzetta recalled, with SDNA quoting his line "I am leaving because I did not compromise" and pointing to his frustration with what went on behind the scenes in Greek football (translated from Greek). The family stayed involved, with his nephew Giannis Vardinogiannis, son of his brother Vardis, taking control of the club, according to Sport24.

He never really left the stands, though. In recent years he was often spotted at games at the Olympic Stadium and at Leoforos Alexandras, and the last match he watched in person was the playoff derby against PAOK on May 17, the final game Panathinaikos played at Leoforos, SDNA reported. The Super League said he had written his own history in Greek football "in indelible letters" for decades, per Sport24, and the wider Panathinaikos multi-sport club also sent its condolences (translated from Greek).

My take: you do not have to have loved every decision he made to see what he built. The Paiania training center, an academy that fed a European champion national team, two trips to the last four of Europe's top competition, and a trophy cabinet that filled up for two decades. He was stubborn, loud and very much in charge, and the fans let him know when they disagreed. That is usually what it looks like when someone really cares about a club.

Panathinaikos are back in action on Sunday, when they host Asteras Aktor at the Olympic Stadium at 17:30 Greek time on matchday 7 of the Super League, per Gazzetta. It will be the first home game since his passing, and it should be an emotional afternoon. For more Greek football, basketball and everything in between, keep an eye on our Greek Sports section. Rest well, Captain.

Sources: Gazzetta, Panathinaikos FC, Sport24, SDNA.

Image: Panathinaikos FC crest, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).