Panathinaikos’ owner Dimitris Giannakopoulos Is At It Again!

If you’re not familiar with Dimitris Giannakopoulos then I’m happy to provide an introduction.

Giannakopoulos is the owner of the historic Panathinaikos basketball team in Greece. His family built their fortune from the pharmaceutical industry and his father Pavlos and uncle Thanasis used some of that money to buy Panathinaikos, with the club becoming professional in 1992.

Dimitris inherited the team upon their deaths in 2018 and 2019 respectively, but he was already a central figure with the club and has never been far away from controversy. Looking at the search results under his name at EuroHoops.net gives you a good picture of how he behaves.

From threatening to kill referees to constant verbal attacks on the governing bodies in Greek and European basketball, Giannakopoulos acts like a man who is used to always getting his own way and believing that his (inherited) wealth allows him to behave however he likes.

You can probably think of a few other people who this sounds like.

His latest misdemeanour, as reported by BasketNews, involved yet another brutal tirade against officials involved in a recent play-off game against Anadolu Efes Istanbul, followed by yet another threat to pull his team out of the Euroleague and align with the recently-announced NBA Europe proposal (on which there will be plenty of articles here over the off-season).

Giannakopoulos knew what would be coming his way, stating on Instagram “I don’t give a fxxk about your fines, I don’t give a fxxk”.

Sure enough, his bank account is now 100,000 Euros lighter. Even though the sum won’t trouble him one bit, I suspect the governing body enjoyed handing down the penalty all the same.

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