http://www.talkbasket.net/5782-olympiacos-stays-headless-as-angelopoulos-family-quits-vids-pics.html Good thing we got rid of the hairy goat-herder before he caused Les Alexander to quit, too.
Wow - sucks they are not being paid, I guess their contracts are breached and they are all free agents. DD
The players will get paid their money. They have laws in Greece, believe it or not. If the owners do not pay them, they will be held legally liable and have their possessions taken. As far as the player's status goes, they will either become free agents and get their last year's salary, or be kept by the club. The multi-billionaire Marinakis family (that is richer than the previous owner, the billionaire Angelopoulos brothers) already took over the team. The new ownership is actually even richer. The budget for next season was cut, but not that much. They had a budget of $46 million last season and the new owners cut it to $35 million for next season. No difference at all, from if the Angelopoulos brothers had stayed the owners. Because they were cutting the budget drastically every season. It was $70 million in 08-09, then $53 million in 09-10, then $46 million this last season. And the Angelopoulos brothers had already announced if they kept the team that there would be more budget cuts this year. So the budget of $35 million for next season under the Marinakis family is probably the same as it would have been anyway. It's still the second highest budget of any basketball club in Greece and Europe, after only Panathinaikos. Somehow, I am sure that the club will be able to get by with the second highest budget in Europe. It just won't be the highest budget anymore. Besides, the Marinakis family is probably a more stable ownership group than the Angelopoulos brothers, because the whole family will help, whereas with the Angelopoulos brothers, the parents did not put money in. And the Angelopoulos brothers had purchased control of all rights to the basketball club from Kokalis, which put all the financial burden on them, and none on Kokalis. The Marinakis family works to run Olympiacos in conjunction with Kokalis (another billionaire), so they do not have to take all the burden of the basketball section alone. Which is where the Angelopoulos brothers made their mistake. They should have stayed working in conjunction with the amateur club and the soccer club. The new owners are keeping it all together, so that they will keep less financial burden on just themselves, and so that the profits of the sections will be more evenly distributed. As for Spanoulis, he will either stay if the Marinakis family wants to keep him, or he will go to a team in Turkey, Spain, Russia, or USA.
You do know that when we toss around terms like "millionaire" and "billionaire" here we are talking about $USD, not Hellenic Neo-Drachma Coppers (redeemable on demand at the Central Bank of Greece for Ovine naughty favors, or so I've heard). Sad this happened to Olympiakos- a few years ago you were explaining to me how they were the richest franchise in the entire world and could pretty much buy and sell the whole NBA on a whim.
i dont doubt that. Spoiler <iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/rshdJZruH_0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Angelopoulos brothers, Marinakis family, Kokalis - they are all billionaires in US dollars. Greece's currency is the Euro, which is worth much more than the US dollar. Not the "Neo-Drachma Coppers".
