AEK’s logo of the double-headed eagle could not be a better illustration of the same club looking at different directions.

The Athens football club seems cursed these last few years as it is still unable to recover from its internal strives and the inability to set up a strong and convincing board, more than a year after the resignation of Demis Nikolaidis from the presidency. The latest accusations about leaks and personal agendas within the club served as proof of that on Friday.

The controversial leadership of the former striker and member of the Euro-2004-winning Greece squad lasted from the summer of 2004 to autumn and did pull the club out of the serious financial problems it was in five years ago.

However, the high demands from the club’s fans and the expensive contracts that AEK already had signed (including the amazingly high compensation agreed in manager Lorenzo Sera Ferrer’s contract) that brought the club back to the red, with debts growing by the month until today.

The leadership of Nikos Koulis and then Nikos Thanopoulos, the current president of the football club, has not managed to turn things around for the club, which missed out on a Champions League spot in last May’s playoffs and is struggling this autumn in the Europa League group stage. It is also already out of the Greek Cup and has a disappointing distance from its rivals to the title.

Since this summer, major shareholder Nikos Notias has embarked on a worldwide search for an investor who would pull AEK out of its troubles.

After some failed negotiations with Cypriot entrepreneurs (at least two separate cases), Notias has reached a preliminary agreement with Chicago-based construction magnate Haralambos (Bob) Kozonis, a Greek-American who makes no secret of his affection for the Athens club.

Kozonis appears ever closer to taking over at AEK, with the share capital increase originally scheduled for December now planned for January 2010 and Kozonis about to spend as much as 19 million euros in order to become the club’s strongman.

Yet the ongoing strifes within the club’s officials and shareholders are showing no signs of ceasing. The war of statements last month between Thanopoulos and Nikolaidis confirms there are at least two warring factions within AEK.

Furthermore, the amateur division of the club, which by law owns 10 percent of shares but has also received the stakes that Koulis and former vice-president Takis Kanellopoulos conceded to it for free, also plays its own role.

Notably, the amateur division is run by Original 21, the group of hardcore fans led by Dimitris Hatzichristos, that has gone along way to keeping the other sports divisions of the club (outside football) in some form of order.

The latest episode of unrest within the football club came on Friday. Sports papers revealed the whole of the preliminary agreement between Kozonis and Notias, obviously leaked by some well-wishers within the club.

The document revealed certain aspects of the club’s finances and the concessions each side was about to make for a full agreement to be reached.

This prompted a thunderous reaction by both men late on Friday, making accusations of treachery within AEK.

Kozonis reaction

“From the first time that I expressed by interest in acquiring a majority stake at AEK, I have watched a war taking place and I do not know whether the aim of those who say they care about AEK is to avert my involvement,” said Kozonis in his statement on Friday.

“I cannot imagine there are people in Greece who are trying to dissuade me from trying to bring about AEK’s renaissance. AEK has many problems and I am aware of them.”

“I don’t know what they want. They obviously wish for an AEK with problems an AEK without its home ground, an AEK that is bankrupt, with its amateur division pulled apart, with the club deprived of everyday joy and with an administration appointed by court.”

“It is unacceptable that such an important document as our preliminary agreement was published in its entirety and risks losing its credibility. I hope they do not continue [acting like that] because they humiliate AEK,” stated Kozonis, nicknamed in Greece as Bob the Builder.

In a separate statement Thanopoulos remarked that “leaking such a document creates major problems to AEK. The objective of all this is to avert AEK’s exit from the tunnel it is in, serving those people’s personal interests.”

“I am ashamed that the club has reached such a point and it is everyone’s fault. The administrative inadequacy of the whole of the last year has allowed these insulting to the club’s history phenomena to take place,” said Thanopoulos, adding that he is apologising to the club’s fans for all this.

“I hope Notias and Kozonis continue their negotiations regardless, so that an agreement can be reached,” he concluded.

AEK fans will certainly be hoping so.

Yet even an agreement is unlikely to stop the internal war. Only success on the filed can really help to heal the rifts. And AEK has not had any success for the last 15 years. A very very long time for a club like AEK.

GEORGE GEORGAKOPOULOS