Mihalis Filopoulos (1985–2007) was a 22 year old Panathinaikos

Panathinaikos

Panathinaikos Athlitikos Omilos is a multi-sport club based in Athens, Greece. It has the shamrock as its official emblem and green and white as its colours...

 fan who was stabbed to death on March 29, 2007 at Paiania

Paiania

Paiania is a town and a municipality in East Attica, Greece. It is an eastern suburb of Athens, locatwed east of Mount Hymettus. Until the late 20th century, the area was known as Liopessi . Half of the municipality and the western part is the rocky landscape of Mount Hymettus...

, a town near Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

, Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, during a pre-arranged clash with rival hooligans of Olympiacos

Olympiacos

Olympiacos F.C. , also known simply as Olympiacos, Olympiacos Piraeus or with its full name Olympiacos C.F.P. , Olympiacos Club of Fans of Piraeus, is a Greek association football club, part of Olympiacos CFP, based in Piraeus....

. His death caused major upset in Greece and sparked a large police

Police

The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...

 investigation into the organised supporters scene.

Previous days

A volleyball

Volleyball

Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...

 game between Panathinaikos' and Olympiacos' women teams was scheduled to take place on March 29, 2007 in Paiania, for the Greek volleyball cup. Since this was a women's event, not much police force was assigned to it (usually men's games between the two teams are classed as very high risk). Therefore, hooligans from both sides sought the opportunity to organise a full-scale clash unobstructed by police. Indeed, news about the meeting in Paiania (later called "rendez-vous of death" by the media) were circulating in supporters clubs and web sites and at least 400 people knew about it beforehand .

March 29. 2007

Olympiacos hooligans were initially gathered at Piraeus

Piraeus

Piraeus is a city in the region of Attica, Greece. Piraeus is located within the Athens Urban Area, 12 km southwest from its city center , and lies along the east coast of the Saronic Gulf....

 and Panathinaikos hooligans at Halandri. From there, each formed motorcycle convoys to Paiania. The tensions were so high that a player of the local team Marko was stabbed by Olympiacos fans because he was seen in a car wearing his team colours, green, just because they were also Panathinaikos colours .
Filopoulos was allegedly targeted for a previous incident involving hooligans from the two teams. He was stabbed by two different people and another four hit him with clubs on the head.. The scene was filmed with a mobile phone

Mobile phone

A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...

 camera

Camera

A camera is a device that records and stores images. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism for projecting images...

, distributed to fans circles and even published on YouTube

YouTube

YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

. Several media took hold of the video and kept showing it for days, even in prime-time.

Investigation

A police raid has taken place immediately afterwards in many of the clubs of both teams and large quantities of weapons and drugs were seized, including petrol bombs, knives, baseball bats, slingshot

Slingshot

A slingshot, shanghai, flip, bean shooter or catapult is a small hand-powered projectile weapon. The classic form consists of a Y-shaped frame held in the off hand, with two rubber strips attached to the uprights. The other ends of the strips lead back to a pocket which holds the projectile...

s, metal chain

Chain

A chain is a sequence of connected links.Chain may also refer to:Chain may refer to:* Necklace - a jewelry which is worn around the neck* Mail , a type of armor made of interlocking chain links...

s and flare gun

Flare gun

A flare gun is a firearm that launches flares. It is typically used for signalling, as distress signalling, at sea or from the ground to aircraft...

s . Police managed to gather evidence for the participation of 28 people from both teams in the rendez-vous. Five people were charged with accessory

Accessory (legal term)

An accessory is a person who assists in the commission of a crime, but who does not actually participate in the commission of the crime as a joint principal...

 to homicide

Homicide

Homicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...

 in May, including a member of Olympiacos' board of directors

Board of directors

A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...

.

Aftermath

In the wake of Filopoulos' death, all team sport events in Greece were suspended from March 29 to April 12 . Although people were always generally negative towards supporters' clubs, this was considered as the last straw. It was the first time something of this scale (over 500 people) and with such grave consequences had ever happened and calls for immediate investigation on clubs "private armies" were heard. Subsequently, the ministry of Sports, did indeed close all clubs and only allowed the reopening of some after rigorous id and background checks of its members. They also vowed to install surveillance cameras to all stadiums and enforce even harsher penalties..

Later developments

On December 6, 2007 it became known that legal discrepancies in the way suspects were examined by the police, rendered their statements invalid, even though some had confessed. This resulted in the case of manslaughter being put in the archives and legal proceedings to be filed only for minor charges. Two days later, after an amateur

Amateur

An amateur is generally considered a person attached to a particular pursuit, study, or science, without pay and often without formal training....

 football match at Lykovrysi

Lykovrysi

Lykovrysi , is a suburb in the northern part of Athens, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Lykovrysi-Pefki, of which it is a municipal unit....

 between the home team and Pangrati, 20 persons wearing hoods, attacked with crowbar

Crowbar (tool)

A crowbar, a wrecking bar, pry bar, or prybar, or sometimes a prise bar or prisebar, and more informally a jimmy, jimmy bar, jemmy or gooseneck is a tool consisting of a metal bar with a single curved end and flattened points, often with a small fissure on one or both ends for removing nails...

s and clubs

Club (weapon)

A club is among the simplest of all weapons. A club is essentially a short staff, or stick, usually made of wood, and wielded as a weapon since prehistoric times....

3 players of the away team, among them Nikos Stylianesis, who was one of those charged but later released for Filopoulos murder .