Marinakis: Tsipras is a liar

03:13 17/5/2019 - Πηγή: Τα Νεα

In a no-holds-barred interview, shipowner, Olympiacos FC leader, media owner and Piraeus city council candidate Evangelos Marinakis detailed how Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and government ministers have targeted

him over the last four years on various levels, including the illegal intervention in open judicial cases.

“With my heart I tell you, my roots are in Crete and Pontos and I have not learned to bow my head when I am spat at. All these people, including politicians, who are involved in this affair and they will pay a very heavy price in the coming years,” Marinakis told journalist Antonis Sroiter on Alpha television.

“Let them not come out and say tomorrow that this is a threat. It is a promise."

Referring to his acquaintance with main opposition New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Marinakis said it is formal and that he has only seen him a few times and never funded New Democracy, as Tsipras and SYRIZA have alleged.

Marinakis said that Tsipras has told “five million lies” during his term in office, and has been fooling the Greek people for four years.

“For a purported left-winger like Mr. Tsipras, I don’t think Greek citizens feel especially proud about the way his family enriched itself,” he said, alluding to the recent press reports that Tsipras father Pavlos and his uncle Iraklis Tsipras became wealthy with state contracts granted them by the junta in the early 1970’s.

Tsipras said his father was a progressive in the anti-junta camp and had no ties to the dictatorship. Yorgos Tsipras, the head of the PM's economic bureau, said his father was in the resistance in Crete in a group called DEKA (which plotted to abduct King Constantine and Queen Anna-Maria so as to force the king to swear in a democratic government and whose members were jailed.

Iraklis Tsipra, however, was the only of those who spent only a night in jail only to be released and later given a high-level post in Panathinaikos FC,

Marinakis stressed his passion for Piraeus and how his Piraeus Victorious City Council ticket has changed the face of the city over five years, despite the disruption of the metro creation and that he has donated for various projects from the remodeling of public squares to playgrounds, a closed gym, soup kitchens and summer camps.

Marinakis underlined his greatest love and passion for Olympiacos FC and that he intends to stay on from many years.

He added that even if he wanted to sell it there is no one in the country at the moment who could the ensure the team’s survival and put it on a footing that will allow it win games and championships.

Marinakis said that when he bought Olympiacos from Sokratis Kokkalis it had a debt of 40mn euros, twice the amount it had when Kokkalis bought it from businessman and banker Yorgos Koskotas.

Marinakis said that since 2010 he put over 100mn euros in the team, including taxes and insurance contributions.