Greek football has been plunged into a crisis with an officiating team for a top-flight match in the country being accused of arriving for the match intoxicated and having an altercation on the plane.
AEK Athens and Aris Thessaloniki were due to meet on Sunday, however the clash was thrown into doubt for a short period upon the officials' arrival in Athens.
Four Polish officials - Pawel Raczkowski, Radoslav Siecka, Adam Kupcik and Kristof Jakubik - arrived to oversee the match, but, as accusations of their inebriation spread, they were quickly withdrawn from their positions.
Reporting within the local media has suggested that the issue began on Saturday evening, when the officiating team were travelling to Greece.
This chaos comes amidst the backdrop of the Greek Super League electing to use foreign officials for the start of their play-off stage.
"Already during the flight, they got into a fight with Greek passengers who live in Poland and were coming to visit their homeland," a media report from Gazzetta.gr stated.
"The four referees had a conversation about Greek football, saying terrible things while consuming large quantities of alcohol on the plane."
The governing body acted quickly
The governing body of Greek football acted quickly upon hearing about the issue, removing the Polish officials from the match and replacing them with a local team.
Gazzetta.gr reporters were able to contact the referees in question and they vehemently denied the accusations made against them.
"Everything that was written about us being drunk is a lie," one official is quoted as saying.
"We are professional referees and we would never behave that way.
"What happened during the fight was this: two passengers who spoke both languages started insulting us for no reason, they told us that they support Panathinaikos and that the next day they would tell everything to the press and we wouldn't be able to work the match."
What makes the case even more bizarre is the fact that Pawel Raczkowski, the lead referee of the group, is considered an elite UEFA official and he even took charge of Manchester United's Europa League match with Sheriff earlier this season.
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