Saturday’s scheduled Greek Super League match between AEK and OFI Crete has been called off amid fears of violence by fans of the Athens team angry at the absence of tickets for the game.
Greek General Secretary of Sports Panos Bitsaxis made the decision on police advice on Friday because financially-troubled AEK’s failure to pay state taxes meant it was not able to issue tickets for the weekend clash.
Police feared that supporters would force their way into the Olympic stadium to see the match instead.
“In addition, we have information that the supporters would create violence outside the stadium. Thus, we recommend for public safety reasons the match be postponed,” the police statement added.
AEK said in a statement that the postponement was “clearly a decision by the police”.
“We, on our part, did whatever was possible to play in front of our supporters. It was not possible to print the tickets due to financial reasons.”
AEK reportedly could not raise 200,000 euros (about $A245,000) before Friday’s deadline to pay their outstanding tax bill.