Super Sport can show AEK games — for now
An Athens Court yesterday decided to grant pay-TV station Super Sport temporary approval to broadcast league leader AEK’s vital home game against defending champion Olympiakos this Sunday, ahead of a final verdict over the broadcasting rights to AEK’s matches. Super Sport, a subsidiary of AEK’s former owner, NetMed Hellas, has been locked in a legal dispute with rival pay-TV station Alpha Digital. It acquired the team’s broadcasting rights last summer, or early into the frontrunner’s three-year deal with Super Sport. The decision was essentially made to clear the airwaves for Sunday’s televised coverage of the clash between AEK and second-placed Olympiakos, two points behind. But yesterday’s ruling does indicate that, as the situation currently stands, Super Sport could end up victorious in the legal encounter. A final decision is not expected before April 3, at the earliest. The question now is how AEK’s fans and «strongman» Makis Psomiadis – the club’s unofficial boss whose dealings sparked the legal encounter – will respond to yesterday’s decision on Sunday. Psomiadis has declared that his team’s stadium gates will be opened only for Alpha Digital’s crew. AEK fans who went to the courthouse began warming up for Sunday’s clash during yesterday’s hearing. When NetMed’s president, Lambis Tagmatarchis, began testifying, they responded by approaching the court’s windows and waving euro bills.
