After the revelations of the English website Insideworldfootball over the UEFA's approval to Asteras Tripolis in order to play in the Europa League next season and the controversial role which the HFF's integrity officer, Dimitrios Davakis seemingly has played, SDNA reveals his background.
Davakis is a lawyer who according to his friends he is a vivid Olympiakos supporter. So far so good. The incompatibility occurs when he fills a position where he has to be impartial as the integrity officer of the Hellenic Football Federation, a role which cooperates with UEFA.
Davakis is the best friend of a well-known Greek sports journalist who has got exceptional relations with HFF when Davakis was appointed as an integrity officer.
But this friendship was not the only one which helped him to be hired in this position. Davakis may have decent relationship with high profile journalists, however he has got other good contacts in his agenda as well. Like the one with the UEFA deputy General Secretary Theodoros Theodoridis, the son of Olympiakos vice president Savvas Theodoridis, with whom Davakis is pictured in the photo above. Is it a coincidence?
Theodoros Theodoridis is a talented person, but he never forgets his roots. He has helped the Greek clubs a lot of times or the Greece National Team as well.
But the way Davakis was appointed as the HFF's integrity officer is something that has provoked tensions, leading to a prosecutor's intervention. As the tv programme of SKAI, “Diki”, revealed on the 30th of September 2014, the Deputy Public Prosecutor of Appeals of Athens, Virginia Sakellaropoulou, ordered a preliminary examination for the resignation of the HFF's ex-integrity officer, Giannis Tzoufras, who was replaced by Davakis soon after the disclosure of Korea's ordinance.
Sakellaropoulou, who was the district attorney in the trial of the match-fixing scandal which took place in the Athens Court of Appeals, from September until December 2013, investigated the reason why the position did not exist before the scandal was made known and why Tzoufras was appointed twice (when Pilavios and Sarris were in charge as HFF presidents) and examined the change of the integrity officer and if this was made under pressure because of the investigation of the criminal organisation in Greek football.
Three months before, when Davakis was initially appointed, the ex-HFF president Giorgos Sarris was puzzled speaking about his new collaborator. In an interview given to a-sports.gr on the 10th of June 2014, Sarris claimed that Davakis actually replaced Thodoros Kouridis, who is allegedly involved as the director of the criminal organisation in Greek football. However, Kouridis was not the integrity officer, but the legal adviser of the Hellenic Football Federation.
But their controversial actions seem to be common. As the Insideworldfootball revealed over the UEFA's approval to Asteras Tripolis in order to play in the Europa League next season, Davakis has apparently intervened creating a precedent for other clubs as well to be given the green light to play in Europe at a time when they are involved in legal proceedings. Like his beloved club Olympiakos.
As said, Davakis is a passionate Olympiakos supporter. He has followed the club everywhere and he does not hide it. The photo above is posted on his Facebook profile since 2013 with a comment made by him: “Privileged”.
Is there a Greek football fan who would not be privileged if he was pictured with Savvas Theodoridis? There are other similar stories which describe Davakis, however there is no need to get into further details at the time being. SDNA just reveals the way Davakis is appointed in a crucial position for Greek football, a person who is strongly related to a specific club.The Insideworldfootball article which describes the way Davakis influenced the UEFA's Ethics and Disciplinary Inspector, Miguel Lietard Fernandez-Palacios in order Asteras Tripolis to gain the approval to play in Europe is the following: "Weighing heavily in Lietard Fernandez-Palacios's considerations of the Asteras case was a hastily compiled report from the HFF's Integrity Officer, Dimitrios Davakis. He explained that this submissions to UEFA were "not based mainly on official documentation and previous valid and authoritative information from the competent bodies, but also derive from media (newspapers, television, internet)."
There is no explanation in Fernandez-Palacios's report of how much formal corroboration he sought, and no mention of any reference to the substantial documentary evidence currently before the Athens courts. However, Davakis was keen to stress how the accused in the match-fixing case argue: "That the charges are materially unfounded given they are based solely on transcripts of discussions between third persons".
However, it seems that the prosecutor and the special investigator, Giorgos Andreadis do not believe it as they have already imposed three heavy restrictive measures on the alleged directors of the criminal organisation.
