How the first Greek Cup Final 8 turned into a big wasted opportunity / News - Basketnews.com

In his latest BN+ article, Giorgos Kyriakidis explores the ins and outs of the Greek Cup Final 8 hosted in Crete and how the event could have drawn more attention and interest despite the obstacles.

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Before even the last year's Greek Cup Final Four tipped off in Crete, Vangelis Liolios had made it clear: the next step would be to host a Final 8.

The Greek Basketball Federation president aimed to organize an event that his predecessor, Giorgos Vassilakopoulos, had never considered possible. Vassilakopoulos might have had every reason to believe that in a country where the Final Four had been abolished for 18 years, eight teams instead of four would only cause more problems.

The Final 8 has been a tradition in countries like Spain and Italy, but those countries haven't dealt with serious incidents of hooliganism and violence in basketball arenas, except maybe for very few occasions.

Of course, no one would argue with Liolios that the Final 8 should be "a celebration for everyone, for all the people who love sports."

Credit Vangelis Stolis

In some parts of the world, fans' co-existence is taken for granted, either because they've found a way to prevent acts of hostility and deviant behavior or simply because the participating teams don't carry a significant number of ultras who are prone to wreaking havoc.

If this kind of co-existence has become a non-negotiable part of the annual agenda in some parts of the world, Greece and Serbia seem to belong to a hemisphere of their own.

But while in Serbia, Partizan and Crvena Zvezda battled it out with their ultras in attendance, Liolios would hardly take such a risk. No incident should ever happen on his watch - which has been his No.1 priority all along.

In Heraklion, Crete, five teams from the Attica region (Olympiacos Piraeus, Panathinaikos, Peristeri bwin, AEK, and Panionios from Athens), two from Thessaloniki (Aris and PAOK), and one from one of the biggest Greek islands, Kolossos Rhodes, were fighting for the title.

The two EuroLeague powerhouses have always relied on a very extensive fanbase that can be found all over Greece, including Crete. Aris are the team with the most basketball-centered fans, as manifested in their consecutive sold-outs in the Greek league.

PAOK and AEK supporters mostly pay attention to their basketball teams when they're having success, while Peristeri and Panionios have a smaller albeit colorful fanbase.

Kolossos, on the other hand, have built some tradition in the league, but they're not getting enough support even on their own island.

To make a long story short, at least five out of eight teams could have easily filled the stands of an arena with a capacity for 5,200 people, like the one in the area of Nea Alikarnassos, where the Final 8 took place.

It would be a real and quite interesting social experiment if all the teams were able to send their fans to the arena, even with severe security measures in place. That would have been a true celebration of the sport of basketball.

What did we get instead? Let's start the count:

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