Super League Votes 11-3 on TV Rights Study as Goal-Line Cameras Arrive

By Taki Panos

Greek football clubs rarely agree on anything, so an 11 to 3 vote feels close to a landslide. On Friday, the Super League board backed a proposal from league president Giannis Alafouzos to leave each club's commercial value out of the first study on selling the league's TV rights centrally, as Novasports reported. Olympiacos, PAOK and Kalamata voted against, and the Hellenic Football Federation (EPO) cast a blank vote. The same meeting also heard that goal-line cameras will be used from Matchday 8, on October 24 and 25.

Some background helps here. Today, Greek clubs sign their own TV deals, and in the meeting Olympiacos referred to "the four teams with the biggest TV contracts" and to multi-year deals already signed, per Onsports and sport-fm. Central management would mean the league sells the rights as one package and then splits the money, so the real fight is over the formula. Alafouzos is also the man in charge at Panathinaikos, as Novasports and bnsports point out. The timing matters, with Greece having just climbed to 10th in the UEFA ranking.

The official league statement was short. The board decided unanimously, in principle, to commission a study on the central management of broadcasting, internet and other rights, and decided by majority what that study should cover, Onsports and Novasports reported. The study goes to the consulting firms Deloitte and PwC. Its exact parameters and the final assignment will be decided at a board meeting next week. Gazzetta reported that the two firms will send their proposals by Tuesday. Not a lot of time to argue, which may be the point.

So what is "commercial value" here? It is the idea that clubs with more commercial appeal should get a bigger share of the money. According to Onsports and sport-fm, Alafouzos put three options on the table: leave commercial value out of the study entirely, rate each club individually as Olympiacos proposed, or split the clubs into three groups, the top four, the middle of the table and the clubs further down. Panathinaikos wanted it left out for now. "We do not propose it, because we will have delays and tension between the teams," the club said (Onsports, translated from Greek).

The breakdown tells its own story. Voting to leave commercial value out of the first study were AEK, Aris, Asteras Tripolis, Atromitos, Volos, Iraklis, Kifisia, Levadiakos, OFI, Panathinaikos and Panetolikos, per Onsports, with Gazzetta giving the same 11-3 count and the blank vote from the EPO. Against were Olympiacos, PAOK and Kalamata. Kalamata are the surprise name on that list. They are the club that just beat PAOK 3-1 at Toumba, and on Friday they sided with the big clubs.

The meeting was tense, and Levadiakos' Giannis Kompotis did not hide his frustration. "This process is an oxymoron," he said. "Deloitte will say we should get less than what we get now." He then went further: "This is a mockery!" The quotes were carried by both Onsports and sport-fm (translated from Greek). Later the Levadiakos side added a line that sums up the whole debate. "Does Levadiakos have greater commercial value than Aris? Will Deloitte tell us that?"

Olympiacos pushed back. Their representative Koutsaftaki recalled that the season started with an idea for the four clubs with the biggest TV contracts to hand much of that money to the other ten, and that an equal split "by 14" was not backed by PAOK, AEK or Olympiacos. Kostas Karapapas, speaking for Olympiacos, said the point of central management is "to look at the pie, to share more money with the teams below the top five," adding: "I don't understand how the teams' revenues will be reduced" (sport-fm, translated from Greek).

Other clubs had ideas too. Iraklis' Monemvasiotis put it bluntly: "Let's go for central management of the ten, outside the four big ones! Any big club that wants is welcome to join," while OFI's Poursanidis floated splitting a large part of the money equally among the 14 clubs and the rest by league position, per Onsports and sport-fm. PAOK asked the consultants for "two or three alternatives," and Olympiacos warned that, with multi-year contracts signed, "from a legal point of view, it is not something simple" (sport-fm, translated from Greek).

Alafouzos kept his reply short. "In any case, we will receive some proposals from Deloitte and PwC. We will make the decision," he said, as Onsports and sport-fm reported (translated from Greek). So the consultants bring numbers and options, and the clubs still have to agree on the split. Anyone who has followed Greek football knows that is where things usually get stuck.

The goal-line cameras are the easier story. The board had approved them unanimously on July 15, and the league said they arrive on schedule from Matchday 8, according to Novasports and in.gr. Each stadium gets two ultra high-speed Hawk-Eye cameras, one aimed at each goal line, feeding straight into the Hawk-Eye VAR system the league already uses. VAR officials can go frame by frame and zoom in to decide whether the whole ball crossed the line, and the extra angles help with offside calls too, as SDNA and Gazzetta detailed.

Fans at home will see the same pictures. When VAR checks a goal-line incident, it tells the referees its decision and the goal-line camera image is shown in the VAR feed sent to the host broadcaster, so viewers get it as well, per Onsports and Novasports. The cameras also send a 50 frames per second replay signal to the broadcaster. First, PAOK host Iraklis on Sunday in Matchday 7, per in.gr, two Thessaloniki rivals who voted on opposite sides on Friday.

My take: leaving commercial value out of the first study is the sensible move, because it gets real numbers on the table before the arguing starts. But nobody should think the issue has gone away. Olympiacos and PAOK are right that signed contracts matter, and the smaller clubs are right to worry about the split. This vote did not settle that fight. It just moved it to next week. The cameras, at least, are an easy win for everyone.

Next up is the board meeting next week, which should set the study's parameters and make the final assignment, followed by the first goal-line camera weekend on October 24 and 25. For more, keep an eye on our Greek Sports section. The cameras will decide goals. The vote on the money will decide a lot more.

Sources: Onsports, sport-fm, Novasports, Gazzetta, SDNA, in.gr.

Image: Flag of Greece, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).