Evangelos Marinakis achieved a key victory in Greek courts on Monday, which could see him cleared of match-fixing charges he faces as a football club owner in Greece.
The country’s top judges ordered the review of a decision by a lower court last November that sent the Greek owner and another 27 co-defendants to stand trial as part of a wide-ranging probe into the country’s football league.
The decision to refer Marinakis to trial was “insufficiently reasoned”, said the Areopag, Greece’s top court for civil and criminal law matters, according to several press reports and sources close to the issue.
As is standard policy in Greece, court rulings are leaked to the public way ahead their full, official publication.
Fifty-year old Marinakis, majority owner of Greek football club Olympiacos FC and English club Nottingham Forest FC, in the past steadily denied any wrongdoing in the affair and expressed confidence that judges would fully clear him.
In a further boost to Marinakis, the Areopag on Monday confirmed the lower judges’ decision in November to clear Marinakis of a set of far more serious felony charges in connection to the football probe, including fraud, extortion and moral instigation to violent acts.
Last Friday, a Piraeus judge reportedly linked Marinakis to a controversial drugs shipment case.
This prompted the owner to accuse Greece’s government of orchestrating a plot against him to undermine him as one of the country’s top media and soccer club owners.
Sources close to Marinakis said the Greek owner has not received any official notification yet of what the Piraeus judge actually decided on Friday.
They are also interpreting press leaks on the issue as a move by Marinakis’s enemies to pre-empt news of today’s Areopag ruling.
Further investigations into the drugs affair will continue for several months, if not years, before any firm decision is made as to whether any definite charges will be filed in the affair or not.
