That Friday afternoon, outside the Club’s offices on Alexandras Square in the heart of Piraeus, you could feel a light northerly breeze blowing just enough to caress the sea. Just enough to make its presence felt, along with those who had instinctively made their way to the location, realizing the gravity of the moment. It was June 18, 2010, and an entire era was coming to an end in one of the chambers of the Reds’ headquarters: one era was passing the baton to a new one.
Socratis Kokkalis, after 17 years, had long felt that his time as president of Olympiacos had come full circle. However, the right individual had to be found to turn to a new page. As fate would have it, a scenario that had been repeatedly alluded to in sports columns and sports dailies over the past few days played out.
It was Evangelos Marinakis, Miltiadis Marinakis’ son, who would be taking up the Club’s reins—someone who had Olympiacos and Piraeus in his blood.
This was a man whose word is his honor; an individual with the necessary financial resources to guarantee a smooth transition from one era to the next for Greece’s most dominant and popular Club. Above all, he had the grit required for this given moment in time.
The calendar showed a date of June 18, 2010. Greece was before a decade-long fiscal and economic crisis that had just engulfed the country with a vengeance. Only 40 days or so had passed since the Greek government had sought a first IMF bailout, ushering in a period of economic, political and social turbulence that was without precedent in the post-war history of the east Mediterranean country. This was a crisis that, according to many, that changed the Greek people forever.
In the meantime, it was amid this tumultuous period that Olympiacos, as an organization, had to deal with both its own uncertain future and the general downturn affecting the entire country. This twin challenge mandated that the Club conform with the “new order” of things.
At the same time, Olympiacos’ archrivals Panathinaikos—which sported a “multi-shareholder” ownership scheme comprised of several prominent businessmen—had just won the Double in football. With the team’s coffers full, a championship roster in place, and guaranteed revenue from an upcoming Champions League participation, it looked like the “Greens” were ready to extend their dominance far into the future. In fact, conditions were ideal for that team’s success.
‘Every Olympiacos fan should be confident about the days ahead. The future will be as bright as the past,’ Marinakis said on July 6, 2010, when he spoke in public about his involvement with the Club for the first time
Courage shows the way
For a year and a half, Kokkalis had been trying to create the conditions to ensure a bright future for Olympiacos. He had sent personal letters to influential friends, such as prominent shipowners and businessmen known for their affinity for the Reds. At some point, he announced that a 40-percent stake in the team’s shares was on offer, and he then went on to discuss the possibility of selling the team outright or even developing a co-ownership scheme.
In the end, only one real candidate emerged; one endowed with tremendous courage; one determined to engage in an “all against one” contest that he has kept up for 15 years now, and which is still going strong. It was Miltiadis’ son. The same man who on the morning of May 31, 2024 held the Europa Conference League trophy aloft—the first European title ever won by a Greek football club—in front of the monument to the victims of the Gate 7 tragedy. It was the same man who brought the trophy to the gravesides of his father, Miltiadis, and Olympiacos legend Savvas Theodoridis, moments with the power to stir the emotions even now.
The truth
Of course, the ownership transition was no simple matter—which didn’t come as a surprise to those involved in the process. Marinakis himself has almost never referred to what he discovered and received when he took over the helm of the entire organization.
On the surface, the new era began with a practically empty roster for the football team, which had just finished 5th in the Super League first division championship. Commercial revenues for the coming years had already been collected in advance, while the accounting books listed a series of outstanding arrears. At the same time the amateur side was “bankrupt”, its sports departments were burdened with millions of euros in debts and with non-existent revenue prospects, while rosters barely included one or two active athletes on each team.
The complete and glorious turnaround is now well known to all. Today, in hindsight, it’s easy to talk about a “happy end” and “let bygones be bygones”. Thankfully we’ll never know what would have transpired if Evangelos Marinakis had listened to the “voice of reason” rather than his heart. However, that doesn’t mean that what he accomplished could have been accomplished by someone else.
Every single red-and-white stripe
Which poses the question: “how did he pull it off?”
Obviously, the first answer is that he made a huge investment, because that’s where it all starts. Another primary ingredient was love! Love for the team, and endless hours stooping over a very ambitious project. There was also a distinct personal cost entailed, as his involvement often made him the target of a corrupt system, which when it backs off, it only does so only momentarily before rearing its ugly head again…and again.
Olympiacos’ “restart” had all the trappings of a technocratic plan that could now serve as a case study, with the project’s main axes still in place.
Strictly in terms of football, for instance, the Rentis Training Center has been transformed into one of the best in Europe, with an emphasis on developing and promoting the next generation of Olympiacos stars.
A solid organizational chart defines the football department from bottom (the youth academies) to top (the seniors’ side), with the “Iberian school” (Portuguese and Spaniards) preferred as trainers and top coaching staff. There’s also a strategic goal to develop Olympiacos into a “selling club”, bringing it in line with the leading trends on Europe’s central football stage. A solid agenda for growth on the football side has emerged and gradually attracted some of the most significant personalities in global football.
The catchphrases of the past 15 years of success and accomplishments have been “persistence” and “legacy”, coupled with a determination to cultivate champions who care about everything that goes on in the world around them, and are always on the lookout for ways to “return the love” to fans and society as a whole. Every decision, every initiative, every plan is akin to stitching together a fine cloth—just like the stripes on the 2025 red-and-white jersey created to commemorate the club’s 100th anniversary.
The restart
However, Marinakis didn’t stop at football, where he elevated the Club to as high as 21st place in the European ranking and made it the first organization to win two UEFA trophies (the Conference League and the Youth League) in the same season. He wasn’t just the only president in Greek football history to win the first division (Super League) championship in his inaugural year, or putting in place the underpinnings for a new dynasty that went on to win seven championships in a row (2011-2017) and 11 Cups in 15 years (73.3%)—the most successful tally of all time.
What Marinakis did was take charge of the entire red-and-white multi-sports organization—excluding the pro basketball team, which is run by the Angelopoulos brothers—and achieve a comprehensive and ground-breaking restart. In fact, the Marinakis era could easily be described today as “our finest years”.
During the past amazing 15 years the Reds have achieved a great deal. The Club created new heroes and cultivated its status as a Legend; it created new thrilling memories for the millions of its fans and filled the head office’s shelves with new trophies. Above all, Olympiacos served as an example of resilience for Greece itself, which was engulfed in the worst crisis in its post-war history and from which it emerged. Proof that we can all persevere.
A perennial No. 1
During his tenure, the amateur Olympiacos organization, with Michalis Kountouris serving as its president, has accumulated 128 titles—including 10 European titles—among the core team sports!
Seven European titles have been won by the women’s water polo team, and one each by the men’s water polo side, the men’s volleyball and the women’s volleyball teams. This makes Olympiacos the most prolific multi-sport club in the world, with successes at every level.
In doing so, the organization with the laurel-crowned youth on its jerseys has managed to overtake sports giants such as Barcelona and Benfica, and climbed to No. 1 in the international list for the most trophies won. At the time of writing, Olympiacos has won no fewer than 327 titles across all team sports!
At the same time, the Reds have produced numerous Olympic champions who have brought honor to the “Blue-and-White” Greek flag and promoted the name Olympiacos around the world.
Every word a contract
“Every Olympiacos fan should be confident about the days ahead. The future will be as bright as the past,” Marinakis said on July 6, 2010, when he spoke in public about his involvement with the Club for the first time.
“I myself am taking the risk of contributing a great deal of money to help Olympiacos exit the difficult situation it finds itself in both financially and competitively. My vision is to transform Olympiacos into a self-sufficient Club that operates to the highest professional standards and relies on its fans. I want our stadium to be full every Sunday, and for every home to have the jersey of its favorite player in it,” he emphasized, gazing out over an audience of hundreds and looking Stavros Daifas straight in the eye.
Daifas, who had successfully led Olympiacos as president in the late 1970s and early 1980s, was there in that hall on that day, just as he had been decades earlier when Marinakis, a child still, had come to the Club with his hand held by his father Miltiadis, “who conveyed to me his own love and devotion for our Club”, Evangelos Marinakis reminded all those present as he inaugurated the dream of a new era for Olympiacos.
That glorious moment
Sometimes, it’s really interesting to look back and revisit some of the statements that were made 15 years ago. That’s especially true in this case, when the man at the helm certainly wasn’t making idle pronouncements. He acted on those pledges.
Marinakis provided soul and substance to his vision by combining his own dream with the dreams of millions of fans. His only “miscalculation” was in making a “… personal commitment that youngsters, the new generation of Olympiacos fans, will experience the same joys that we all have here at the Karaiskakis (Stadium).”
Instead, the Olympiacos fans who were in the Nea Filadelfia Stadium on the evening of May 29 realized that the supreme joy they were feeling was unprecedented. It was a moment that surpassed all expectations and remains eternal.
