Fassoulas pondering comeback
Retired basketball player Panayiotis Fassoulas, nowadays active in politics since his retirement three years ago, is considering a comeback at the age of 39, Sports Minister Giorgos Lianis said yesterday. Fassoulas, an MP with the ruling PASOK party for the Piraeus district, wants to return to his former club Olympiakos, Lianis told local radio station Flash FM. Despite his advanced age, Fassoulas, who smoked two packets a day during his career, seems determined to return. The 2.13-meter (7-foot) basketballer-turned-politician nicknamed «The Spider» for his thin frame and extraordinarily long arms, approached Lianis, the minister said, to ask whether he could be exempted from the law that bars MPs from practicing professions while serving their terms. Fassoulas, who established himself with PAOK before transferring to Olympiakos in 1993, was also a member of Greece’s national team that was crowned European champion in 1987. Rumors have also surfaced about a comeback by that side’s high-scoring star player, Nikos Gallis, now 45. In a recent poll, fans of his former club, Aris, said they want him back. According to Lianis, Fassoulas said: «My position is easier than Gallis’s, because he needs to score 30 points a game to be good. If he scores 10, he’s not. I just have to get the rebounds and make a couple of blocks.»
