Interview of Christos Theos: “Of course, Juankar could play”.

Christos Theos reveals to SportDay.gr what happened on the night of  the…  fire – cracker and sheds light -with every detail and with clear evidence- on the essence of the «Juankar case» that changed the terms of the Championship.

Christos Theos, who was the head of the medical team of Olympiacos for many years, reveals in an exclusive interview with SportDay.gr what exactly happened with Juankar during the Olympiacos-Panathinaikos derby at «G. Karaiskakis» and categorically states that the Panathinaikos player was able to play!

In detail:

–Mr Theos, lately, have been one of the faces of the news.

– Unfortunately for me. Anyone who knows me, knows very well that I never sought for this to happen. But I did get into the limelight and some people even tried to distort reality. I personally had changes on the sporting level as well, Olympiacos lost 4 points unjustifiably, and Panathinaikos acquired 3 points that has never won on the pitch:

– Regarding the essence of the case. Was Juankar injured that night or not? Was he able to continue playing or not?

-As you know, from the first minute I was next to the doctor, Mr Gogos and Juankar. The match doctor himself, Mr Gogos, after a few minutes following the suspension of the match, said that he did not see any pathological or neurological issue  and the player was ‘ok’ to continue playing. I was of the same, clear, opinion. He was then subjected to extortionate pressure over the phone and did not write down on paper the «ok» he originally said. The player was fit to play».

– And then what happened, doctor? How did we get to other medical opinions that played a role during the adjudication?

-His team insisted that an ambulance  from  “HYGEIA”  hospital  should  come  and  pick him up. From that moment on, the violation of all medical protocols began! It’s unbelievable to hear them arguing on the one hand that the player should go to the hospital and on the other hand not to go to the nearest hospitals.

Is it possible that the player is taken to the hospital two hours later even though they were claiming something urgent?

The nurse who received the player told us and wrote in the admission documents that he hasn’t noticed anything wrong with him, that he is standing comfortably, that he is able to walk, that he has no injury.

The doctors who were on duty gave me the same information, that there was nothing abnormal. Then Mr. Politakis, the Director of the pathology clinic appeared, together with Mr. Nomikos, the Director of the ENT clinic of «HYGEIA» hospital, who, as I found out, was not on duty, but was found there on purpose, since he also announced that he had carried out the ENT assessment and reported the results of the first examination (an audiogram).

In this audiogram the player was found with 80db loss in his left ear! After this result, I requested for an objective test with evoked potentials. And after a few minutes in the test of evoked potentials, done by the ENT specialist Mrs. Vasileiou, in «MITERA» hospital, the hearing loss was 30db! In the audiogram, we have a subjective result, since the patient answers whether he can hear or not, while in the examination with evoked potentials we have an objective test. However, it is impossible for such differences to exist.

So I am also surprised regarding the first examination, and I  am  also  surprised, finally, about the fact that Mr Nomikos kept the player in hospital overnight, whereas on the basis of the second, objective, examination, he could go home! Also, the medical opinion of Mr. Nomikos that we saw afterwards and was presented at the hearing, as I was informed, was out of reality!

-You therefore clearly consider that the player was fit to play.

 «Obviously! An athlete of that level could not play because he has… hypoesthesia in one ear? If you go to a nightclub, if you go for an audiogram in the morning you will have hypoesthesia.»