Leaders Olympiakos beat PAOK on Gate 7 anniversary
ByReuters
Published 07/02/2016 at 21:53 GMT
Olympiakos Piraeus's Omar Elabdellaoui earned the Super League leaders a 1-0 home win over PAOK Salonica on an emotionally-charged Sunday night which marked the 35th anniversary of the Karaiskaki Stadium disaster.
Eurosport
Image credit: Eurosport
Both teams honoured the memory of the 21 fans who lost their lives in what remains Greece's biggest sporting tragedy by laying wreaths and flowers ahead of kick-off during a brief memorial service in front of the Gate 7 area of the stadium.
Twenty Olympiakos fans and one AEK Athens supporter were crushed to death while rushing out of Gate 7 to celebrate Olympiakos's 6-0 win over AEK on Feb. 8, 1981.
Once the match started, Olympiakos continued their march to a 43rd league title thanks to a goal by right back Elabdellaoui, the 24-year-old Norwegian dispossessing midfielder Vitor before stroking home a precise shot after eight minutes.
The win, coupled with defeats for second-placed AEK Athens, who lost 1-0 at Atromitos, and Panathinaikos, who went down 1-0 at home to Xanthi on Saturday, means Marco Silva's Olympiakos side stretched their lead to 19 points.
The Greens are third a further four points adrift, while PAOK remain in fourth spot, four more points behind.
Gus Poyet's AEK were undone by Brazilian Luiz Brito's 53rd-minute strike for Atromitos, although ugly clashes between small groups of fans after the final whistle overshadowed the match.
One Atromitos fan was admitted to hospital after suffering a stab wound but was not seriously injured, police said.
With Greek football continuing to be plagued by crowd violence, Atromitos owner Giorgos Spanos said:
"Certainly this should not happen, but unfortunately when there is an explosion of social problems throughout the state, people know that in football it's easy to cause trouble so these unorthodox people are finding a place to create such incidents."
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