Greece's basketball championship is on the brink of cancellation after Deputy Sports Minister Giannis Vroutsis issued a final ultimatum to the warring owners of Panathinaikos and Olympiacos, demanding a face-to-face meeting to salvage the finals series.
Mr. Vroutsis has summoned Panathinaikos owner Dimitris Giannakopoulos and Olympiacos owners Panagiotis and Giorgos Angelopoulos to a meeting at the Ministry of Sports by 3 p.m. Wednesday.
Failure to appear, Mr. Vroutsis warned, will result in the permanent cancellation of the remainder of the season.
The urgent meeting follows escalating off-court hostilities that have overshadowed the championship. Both clubs previously refused a joint session, with tensions peaking after Game 2 at the Peace and Friendship Stadium (SEF), where public spats between team officials replaced fan violence.
"The problem isn't with the fans this time. It's with the leadership," Mr. Vroutsis stated, noting the absence of crowd trouble. "There were no flares, no objects thrown.
The shameful scenes came from the executives themselves."
In response to the turmoil, Vroutsis suspended Wednesday’s scheduled Game 3 between the rivals and proposed a "moral and athletic pact" between the owners to ensure a respectful resumption of the series.
"The game must go on, but only if both sides publicly commit to a respectful and sportsmanlike conduct," Mr. Vroutsis said, adding that any agreement would be made on record and publicly broadcast.
However, both sides remain defiant.
Mr. Giannakopoulos, in a social media post, declared he would not meet with the Angelopoulos brothers, stating, "I will not sit at the same table with those two men."
The Angelopoulos brothers sharply rejected the invitation as "unacceptable," accusing Giannakopoulos of threatening behavior.
They stated their only meeting with him would be "in court."
The intensifying conflict between two of Greece’s most storied basketball clubs has eclipsed the championship series, raising broader concerns about the governance of professional sports in the country. Game 3 of the finals, originally set for Wednesday at the OAKA arena, remains indefinitely postponed.