When one does not broadcast what the entire world may see…

That was a day coming out of the wildest and darkest dreams of the clean-up saga. What happened in the AEK-Aris match (2-1), with referee Diamantopoulos, his assistants, the VARs, AVARs and the rest of the…hang, was the fantasy of every clean-up agent. Along with the (scandalous) impunity they will pursue for what happened in the break and after the end.

All that caused anger to Aris officials, and their coach Akis Mantzios, after the final whistle, stressed that evening’s match totally vindicated the Thessaloniki outfit asking for foreign referees.

Apart from referees who determined the final result with their calls, even all staff working for the broadcaster were… in a bad day, who lost all important plays that defined the result in the match and gave AEK the win.

So, let’s get it straight: in 7’, in particular when Lazaos Rotas was booked, the replay provided was so far-away that nobody could clearly discern the Greek defender’s challenge. In 17’, when Aris asked for Rotas second booking and sent-off, the broadcasting channel gave no replay of it.

In 37’, when Diamantopoulos called a penalty after Petros Mantalos “flopping”, Cosmote TV showed only one replay and from a bad angle. How is ti possible that in a contested penalty call, in which the referee had to wait for 3 minutes for the AVR to examine the play, we only get to watch a single replay; This is a genuine question.

In 64’, they showed no replay of the foul committed by Simoes, which might have led to the AEK midfielder’s booking. In Mitoglou’s sent-off, Cosmote TV showed no long shot when AEK’s defender bring Camara down, so that we may see if the Thessaloniki team’s player was about to score. We only watched that several minutes later because Diamantopoulos went to the VAR.

In the case of Simoes’ foul in 78’, they showed a reply taken from an upper tier camera, from a really long distance, and nobody could discern if AEK’s midfielder should have been booked. Three minutes later, Aris challenged a corner kick but once again the broadcaster showed no replay for us to see who last touched the ball before going out of bounds.