Greece first embraced football when the sport was included in the 1894 Olympics, held in Athens. Clubs began to form soon after and in 1912 organised competition arrived in the form of the Hellenic Association of Amateur Athletics (known as SEGAS).
With SEGAS concentrating only on clubs based in Athens and Piraeus a more far-reaching league structure was eventually needed with the Panhellenic Championship emerging in 1927. Even this though omitted provincial sides with only clubs from major cities included.
Which is why, when attempting to identify the five biggest clubs in Greece, we begin our journey in 1959, with all successes and trophies won before that date discounted.
After all, in the home of democracy it is only right to be democratic and it was in this year that the National League came into being, the precursor to the Super League we know of today.
The National League welcomed any and every side, no matter where they were situated, just so long as they were good enough.
Biggest Clubs In Greek Football:
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Olympiacos
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Panathinaikos
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AEK Athens
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PAOK
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AEL
This just leaves us with the task of selecting a quintet of clubs who have the most illustrious history, boast the biggest fan-bases, and who have claimed the most silverware though in truth this is hardly a difficult chore. In the last 65 years only five clubs have won the Greek league.
That doesn’t feel very democratic does it.
5) AEL
Athlitiki Enosi Larissa are the only club beyond Greece’s two major metropolitan areas to have won the league, doing so in 1988. Three years earlier they lifted the Greek Cup, a feat they repeated in 2007.
They additionally reached the quarter-finals of the European Cup Winners Cup, narrowly exiting to Dynamo Moscow.
All of which is a credible return for a club founded in 1964 from the debris of four long-defunct local sides. On its own merit, it’s impressive.
Yet, are these small number of achievements across a club’s whole existence enough to have Larissa viewed as the fifth biggest institution in Greece? Again we come back to Greek football’s fundamental problem, it being a small country that contains two sporting behemoths.
Between them, Panathinaikos and Olympiacos have won 75% of the league championships since 1959.
Not that any of this is Larissa’s fault, of course. Indeed, they have more than done their bit by being one of only three clubs to successfully fend off the Red-and-Whites and the Greens for an entire campaign.
What’s more, their triumph in ’88 was a wholly unexpected one, going against all of the betting. Via tactical innovation and courtesy of largely homegrown talent, it was a feat akin to Leicester topping the Premier League in 2016.
4) PAOK
Based in the far north of the country, PAOK Thessaloniki was founded in 1926 by refugees from Constantinople who had recently fled the Greco-Turkish War. Subsequently the club has retained strong links with the city now known as Istanbul, that resides over the border.
In their infancy, PAOK played beyond the other border, to the north, in the Macedonia second division, until entry was secured to the Panhellenic Championship in the early Thirties.
They were duly one of the founding members of the National League in 1959 and it’s a proud boast that they have never endured relegation.
It was in the Seventies when their star really began to rise, winning an inaugural title in 1976 bolstered by homegrown fare. They repeated the trick ten years later, an era that also saw them prominent in Europe.
A memorable encounter with Bayern Munich in the UEFA Cup went all the way to pens.
In recent seasons, PAOK have doubled their title haul, keeping Olympiacos at bay in 2019 before attaining a fourth league crown just last May. On the final day of the season only three points separated the top three, the White-Black holding their nerve.
Celebrations in the Toumba Stadium that afternoon was raucous to put it mildly, with PAOK blessed by having some of the most passionate fans in world football.
It is a ground infamous for its hostile atmosphere and appropriately Hells Bells by ACDC blasts out prior to every game.
A recent study determined that PAOK have the most zealous supporters on social media.
3) AEK Athens
AEK have done more than anyone to ensure that Greek football isn’t a complete duopoly, claiming 11 titles since 1959 and impressively spreading out their gains, only failing to top the pile in one of the league’s seven decades of existence.
That was in the 2000s when financial problems came to the fore, a situation that ultimately resulted in relegation and ignominy. A points deduction following a pitch invasion was a real low point.
From that, AEK took stock and then took the drastic decision to self-relegate themselves, reverting back to amateur status in an attempt to start over from scratch.
To that point the club had made it a trait to lure household names who perhaps were past their best, all for big money. Rivaldo’s arrival in 2007 epitomised this.
Leaner and majority-owned by a non-profit organisation, the club re-emerged all the better for their transformation, gaining promotion back to the top-flight and challenging the elite again, this time on a firmer financial footing. League titles were won in 2017 and 2023.
2) Panathinaikos
Panathinaikos go by three different nicknames. They are the ‘Greens’, a standard description of their shirt colour.
They are the ‘Shamrock’ denoting the trifolium that is emblazoned on their crest despite nobody knowing for sure why.
It’s their third nickname that is most notable however when it comes to ranking their stature and prowess. They are quite simply the ‘Great Club’.
They certainly are, and crucially always have been, winning their first title way back in 1930 and forever being central to proceedings while Greek football gradually became professionalised.
It was when the National League took hold though when the Athens giants really came into their own, dominating the landscape across the opening era.
Between 1960 and 1972 they won the league eight times, all while adding numerous Greek Cups into the mix. In 1963/64 they went through their entire campaign unbeaten.
Naturally such an iconic institution has been blessed with some majestic talent through the ages. There was Mimis Domazos, the ‘General’ who guided the Greens to a European Cup final in 1971. There was Antonis Antoniadis, who finished top scorer in the Greek top-flight on five occasions.
In more recent times, Gate 13 – the club’s ultra contingent – took great pride in seeing five Panathinaikos players start when Greece won the 2004 Euros against all expectations.
1) Olympiacos
It was stated earlier that achievements prior to 1959 will not be counted when reckoning up the biggest clubs in Greece but an exception should be made for Olympiacos and their dominant early days.
At the very least, their 14 league successes leading up to the National League’s formation should be mentioned in passing.
And from that year forward their domination simply continued, if anything building up a head of steam with every passing decade.
Two titles were secured in the Sixties. Three in the Seventies. The Eighties brought five league crowns and the Nineties produced another trio.
Post-Millenium however, we have witnessed a quantum leap that astonishes. The club nicknamed ‘Thrylos’ (‘Legend’) have only failed to ultimately finish top on five occasions since 2000.
It’s why the most successful side in Greek history – by some distance too – begins each season priced up as uber-strong favourites to once again rule the roost.
In Premier League betting terms, it’s like Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool all merging and putting odds to them seeing out Brighton et al.
*Credit for the photos in this article belongs to Alamy*
