The testimony of two protected witnesses, published by protothema.gr, sheds light on what authorities allege was a widespread scheme at the Hellenic Basketball Federation (EOK), which was headed by businessman Evangelos Liolios.

The witnesses are a referee and the president of a second-division basketball club. Both appeared before a prosecutor, explained that they had first-hand knowledge of events and offered to assist the investigation on condition that no criminal charges would be brought against them. Their request was accepted. Under a relevant legal provision, individuals who have participated in criminal offences may receive favourable treatment under certain conditions if they help prevent crimes or expose and bring those responsible to justice.

‘I hoped I would officiate in the top division’

In his testimony, the active referee referred to around 30 basketball matches between 2018 and 2026 in which he claimed he had received instructions from the businessman under investigation about how to officiate. In return, he said, he did not receive money but continued to be appointed to important matches.

The witness explained that he had met Giorgos Mavraganis, who has been arrested, in 2009 and that they became friends in 2011. He said that, two years before Mr Liolios was elected president of the Hellenic Basketball Federation, Mavraganis had mentioned Liolios to him, saying: “Bet your house on him being the next EOK president.”

Mavraganis also advised him to place a bet on Liolios becoming president, when the odds were 2.25.

The witness said Mavraganis had confided that, through Liolios, he himself would effectively run the administration, while the referee would rise rapidly through the ranks. By this, he meant that the referee would frequently be appointed to matches in Greece’s top-tier A1 national league. According to the witness, however, that did not happen.

Asked whether he knew if Mavraganis exercised some form of control over the Refereeing Committee (KED), and how this was done, the witness replied:

“Yes, I know he controlled the KED because whenever I complained that I had not officiated for three or four consecutive rounds in the A2 league, I would call him and he would appoint me to a match.”

Asked whether he knew of sporting events whose results had been manipulated through improper actions, he replied:

“Yes, there are many matches. In the first year of Mr Liolios’s administration, their first priority was to ensure that no national-league team could approach a referee directly. If a team wanted something, it had to go straight to the Liolios-Mavraganis administration. Any communication I had was with Mr Mavraganis, always with Mr Liolios’s knowledge.

“In the second season under the Liolios administration, I was appointed to national-league matches every week. Referee appointments were made every Monday or Tuesday. We would find out on Wednesday, and rarely on Thursday, where we had been assigned. If they wanted something from me, Mr Mavraganis would contact me through WhatsApp or Viber, for greater security in communications. If he did not want anything, he would not contact me.”

Asked what he meant when he said Mavraganis would contact him “if he wanted something”, and whether Mavraganis gave him specific instructions, the witness replied in the affirmative.

“Yes. Either for a team to win or for a player to benefit — for example, by having many fouls called in his favour to improve his statistics, mainly in the case of younger players.”

The referee then described an alleged attempt to manipulate a match at the request of Mr Mavraganis, with the aim of securing victory for a school team in Patras, representing the Anagennisi school.

According to the witness, most of the players from Promitheas Patras B played at the school. Before the referees were appointed for the match, held between 26 and 29 March 2026 as part of the final stage of the school basketball championship, Mr Mavraganis called him and asked whether he wanted to go to Cyprus. The referee said he did. The witness then called Mavraganis to ask whether he wanted anything from him in relation to the matches. Mavraganis replied that he would let him know.

“He called me again that day or the following day and said, ‘pulverise them’, meaning that Anagennisi had to win and take the championship. I had been appointed to officiate both the boys’ and girls’ semi-finals and finals,” he said.

Asked whether the referees for those matches had been appointed by the KED, he replied:

“The KED sent me to Cyprus, but the appointment was made by the corresponding Cypriot KED. I delivered the results I had been asked to deliver as a referee, clearly favouring Anagennisi in both matches. Anagennisi won the championship. The semi-final was against Hellenic College of Thessaloniki.

“At the end of the final, there was a confrontation with a player from the opposing team, Hypatia, who insulted me. After those matches, I returned to the hotel crying with guilt and said, ‘Enough. If I don’t get what I’m entitled to — that is, an appointment to the A1 — I won’t do anyone any more favours.’”

Asked why he had agreed to manipulate the results of those matches, the referee said he had hoped he would be appointed to officiate in the A1 league.

‘The money was wrapped in paper napkins’

The second protected witness testified, among other things, that he had received €50,000 from Evangelos Liolios, then president of Promitheas, as financial assistance to help the club progress. The witness also claimed that, at the next match, the referee under investigation, Vaso Tsaroucha, was appointed and paid €5,000 to ensure the witness’s team won. He described the payment as a “thank you” for the “favour” he had done for Evangelos Liolios.

The witness began by describing how he had met the businessman who headed the Hellenic Basketball Federation.

“In October 2015, when [the name of the team] and Promitheas Patras were rivals, I received a phone call from Mr Evangelos Liolios for the first time. He said he wanted to meet me. At the time, Mr Liolios was president of Promitheas Patras.

“We met on 31 October 2015, the day before our teams’ match, at a restaurant in Rio. Mr Liolios expressed his appreciation for me because of Faros’s good progress in basketball, and began explaining his plans for Promitheas. We discussed the sports centre in Patras, which was very innovative for its time, as well as the NOUS programme.

“Our conversation went very well, and we agreed to cooperate regardless of the rivalry between our teams. The following day, the match took place as scheduled. We won, and Promitheas even issued a statement congratulating us afterwards.

“I was impressed by Mr Liolios’s ideas, and we did indeed keep in touch. As the season progressed, it became clear from the outset that [the team] would stand out and earn promotion, while Promitheas remained in fourth place. The top two teams would be promoted to the A1 league.

“Throughout the season, we spoke regularly on the phone. He would consult me about various basketball-related matters. At the time, he was also engaged in a fierce dispute, as reports show, with Ethnikos Piraeus, which finished third in the regular season.

“Shortly before the play-offs began, Mr Liolios called me to arrange a meeting at a Coffee Island café in the Acropolis area. He was clearly determined to get his team promoted to the A1 and turn it into a basketball public limited company (KAE). In the A2, Promitheas was an amateur club. Through the KAE structure, he wanted player payments and all the team’s expenses to be visible, because at amateur-club level, players’ wages and expenses were not recorded anywhere, as payments were not made through banks. He wanted to be able to justify expenses.

“My answer was that I was running the team on my own and could neither cope with nor had any desire to turn it into a KAE without partners. So, despite the team’s impending promotion on sporting merit, we would withdraw from promotion.

“I told him that what should concern him was beating the team from Piraeus. I explained that [the witness’s team] would beat Promitheas because it was the better side and had already won twice during the regular season. All [the team] needed was one victory in the three upcoming matches, two of which were at our home ground, where we were unbeaten.

“Mr Liolios then asked me: ‘Can you help me get Promitheas past [the Piraeus team]?’ As I mentioned, the relationship between the two clubs was extremely bad. I replied that, as far as I knew, the officials at [the Piraeus team] were in financial difficulty and lacked the financial resources to cope with promotion and establish a KAE.”

The witness went on to say that a meeting was arranged at his home four hours before a match. Mr Liolios attended, along with an official from the basketball department of the Piraeus team.

“The conversation went like this: ‘Look, if you don’t have the money to fight for promotion and establish a KAE, let the game go today. I’m here for you.’ Those were Mr Liolios’s words.

“No money was offered. The response from the [Piraeus team] official was: ‘Although I could ask you for compensation, I won’t. All I can say is that we won’t fight for the game, and I want us to maintain a good relationship.’

“I guaranteed that we would have good relations from then on and said that Mr Liolios was the future of basketball, so we should let him move forward, given that we did not have the financial means to do so ourselves.

“The meeting ended, and Promitheas won the match 68-60, qualifying for the final against [the witness’s team].

“We met the following day, 9 June 2016, again at a café in the Acropolis area. He thanked me for my help, saying, ‘Let’s get down to business.’ He asked me, ‘Does our agreement still stand — that you will step aside?’

“I replied, ‘Of course, what we agreed still stands. I just want to discuss one thing: if Promitheas fails to get promoted, you will have to pay €300,000 to buy another KAE, based in a different location and with a different tax identification number. If we secure the place, I will step aside and withdraw from promotion. I just want €100,000 to settle all the outstanding financial obligations of [the witness’s team].’

“His response — I mean Mr Liolios’s — was: ‘I can give you €150,000, but I would like the games to finish 3-2.’ He meant that [the witness’s team] should lose three matches so that Promitheas’s promotion would be clear-cut, without [the witness’s team] being promoted first and then withdrawing. This would also save me the promotion bonuses I would otherwise have to pay my players.

“I categorically refused to tell my players to lose. We had done what we had done, and we would make our own history by earning promotion. I told him, ‘If you want it to happen as I proposed, my proposal is clear.’

“He replied, ‘How can I be sure you’ll keep your word and withdraw from promotion?’ I answered, ‘You can’t be sure, but I’m not asking you for anything until it happens.’

“The meeting ended peacefully, although he was not particularly satisfied. In the end, [the witness’s team] beat Promitheas and earned promotion to the A1.

“That evening, after the match, Mr Liolios sent me a congratulatory message, writing, ‘I hope you keep your word.’ I replied that we were going out to celebrate our success at a bouzoukia nightclub and that he would see what happened the next day.

“The following morning, reports emerged that [the witness’s team] would withdraw from promotion to the A1. The official announcement followed within the next few days.

“After the announcement, Mr Liolios called me, thanked me for keeping my word and said he would let me know within the next three days when and where I should go to collect the money we had agreed on — €100,000.

“On 20 June 2016, I went to the headquarters of a coffee company at the Kifissias ring road. Coach [name] handed me the money in a bag in an office where he was present, telling me, ‘This money is for you, as agreed. Vangelis couldn’t come.’

“The money was wrapped in paper napkins. I took it and left. I then called Mr Liolios to thank him. He thanked me in turn for keeping my promise.”

The witness subsequently said that he had met Mr Mavraganis through Mr Liolios and that they had begun devising a plan to secure Mr Liolios’s election as president of the Hellenic Basketball Federation.

“We began drawing up a plan for how Mr Liolios would win the 2020 EOK elections, how we would recruit clubs to vote for him and how we would begin informally recruiting referees.

“Mr Mavraganis’s approach was that we should find friends. The first referee he introduced me to was Elias Koromilas, then an international referee and now an adviser on refereeing to the KED. He believed his career was coming to an end because of the age limit. Seeing that things were about to change at the EOK, he clearly wanted to lead the new refereeing set-up and would help recruit referees.

“From then on, referees began arriving one after another at Mr Mavraganis’s offices. Mr Liolios was kept informed of everything. As the future EOK president, he wanted to control the referees so that Promitheas would benefit.”

Asked whether he knew of any specific basketball match in which the result had been manipulated, or an attempt had been made to manipulate it through improper or illegal actions, the witness referred to a 2018 match involving referee Piloidis, who has been arrested.

“Mavraganis told me he was in contact with Mr Piloidis. I met him on 15 March 2018 in the café on the ground floor of a hotel. He told me that he also controlled Mr [referee’s name], whom I never met, and Mr Piloidis asked me for an advance payment of €5,000 to ensure that [the team] won.

“I had come prepared — I had brought money with me — so I gave it to him in an envelope, after first going to the toilet to count out the exact amount of €5,000.

“He was surprised by how quickly I produced the money and, smiling, told me, ‘I’ll give you a present in the match the day after tomorrow. You’ll see.’

“The present concerned Panagiotis Giannakis, the coach of Aris, with whom he had a bad relationship. He sent him off after giving him two technical fouls before half-time, something extremely rare, particularly for a coach of Mr Giannakis’s stature. When he sent him off, he turned towards where I was sitting and winked at me. Larissa supporters applauded Mr Giannakis as he left the court, recognising how unfairly he had been penalised.”

Another meeting took place in connection with a different match, attended by the witness and Mr Mavraganis.

“Mr Piloidis was appointed to officiate another match, [match details], alongside Ms Vaso Tsaroucha. We first met Mr Piloidis and Mr Mavraganis at a café on Amalias Avenue. We told him that we wanted [the team] to win away from home so that [the team] could avoid relegation.

“He told us that he also controlled Tsaroucha and that each of them would cost €5,000. We told him that, if [the team] won, he would receive the money he had requested.

“[The team] won, with the referee influencing the result. The opposing team was even forced to issue a protest statement at half-time. Afterwards, we met at my house, where Mr Piloidis collected €5,000 for himself and €5,000 for Ms Tsaroucha.”

The following extract from the witness’s testimony about Ms Tsaroucha’s demands is also striking:

“In the summer of 2018, Ms Tsaroucha sent me a message saying, ‘With all due respect, could you arrange for me to stay at a luxury hotel?’

“I said, ‘I’ll arrange it,’ and called Mr Mavraganis. I explained what had happened, and he told me, ‘Arrange it — we’ll split the cost 50-50.’

“I made the booking on 27 July 2018 for a stay from 6 to 9 September 2018, at a cost of €351.70 per night. After her stay, Ms Tsaroucha thanked me profusely for the gift.

“At the time, I had taken over [the team], which was playing in the A2 league and fighting for promotion. Mr Liolios, Mr Mavraganis and I had agreed that it would be beneficial for [the team] to be promoted too, so that we would have another club incorporated into the ‘system’.”