PAOK’s Gate 4 tells Ivan Savvidis: ‘The time has come to leave PAOK’

PAOK’s organized supporters have delivered a blunt message to owner Ivan Savvidis: the time has come to sell the club and leave as a friend.

In a lengthy statement, the Gate 4 supporters’ association said the club’s years of disinvestment, sales of key players and growing reliance on loan signings could no longer be ignored. It argued that PAOK must confront reality without sentimentality and that Savvidis should put forward a realistic asking price for the company.

Gate 4 said it had always spoken about the club’s affairs not because it considered itself the leader of PAOK’s supporters, but because it believed the supporters’ groups should defend the club’s interests. No individual, it said, should stand above criticism, and the club’s values should not become a product for sale.

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The time has come for Ivan Savvidis to set a realistic sale price for the company and leave as a friend, putting PAOK’s interests above everything else.

The group acknowledged Savvidis’ achievements. It described the early period of his ownership as emblematic, saying he financially rehabilitated a struggling football company, returned PAOK to a leading role and was associated with titles that supporters had waited decades to celebrate. But recognition of that contribution, it added, does not provide a lifelong pardon or protect the past from scrutiny of the present.

Gate 4 said PAOK’s football organization had been declining since 2020. Important players had left and been replaced by weaker options, or not replaced at all. Key departures had occurred on the eve of important matches, transfer plans had collapsed over disputes it considered minor for a club of PAOK’s size, and the squad had filled with loan players. Even when the team showed strong chemistry between players and coach, the one or two quality additions needed to improve it often failed to arrive.

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No serious PAOK supporter can or should erase what Ivan Savvidis offered PAOK.