Tensions are high in the Greek soccer arena following a comment that sparked reactions both in Greece and Pontian diasporic communities abroad.
An Olympiacos FC official announcement targeting the rival team’s – PAOK FC – owner Ivan Savvidis states that former USSR-born Savvides is “Russian”.
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The labelling was denounced as racist by the Federation of Pontian Associations of Australia, with a press release issued slamming “expressions insulting Pontian Hellenes across the globe”.
The Federation’s president Peter Stefanides spoke to SBS Greek explaining their response.
“What we saw as problematic was an attempt by Olympiacos president to undermine his PAOK counterpart calling him Russian as if saying that he is not a true Greek”, Mr. Stefanides said, stressing that this was an underlying insult for any Greek-Pontian abroad.
Responding to those who slammed the use of the ethnic attribute, a senior Olympiacos official said that Ivan Savvidis himself prides on being Russian.
But Stefanides, voicing the Federation of Pontian Associations of Australia’s concerns, says the issue at hand is rather the underlying intention to undermine and not the ethnic term per se.
Being called Russian is of course not insulting, he goes on to clarify, but it comes down to the "discriminatory treatment" repatriated Greeks hailing from the former USSR have suffered over the years.
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