2024-05-11 04:22:16
This year’s relegation of PAS from the 1st to the 2nd national team is the eighth in its history but also the cheapest and most predictable, as from the beginning of the season it had weaknesses that it could not cover.
The once strong “Ajax of Epirus” for the first time was relegated so early having the negative streak of only 4 wins in 32 matches! And other times he was relegated to the second national team, but he fought until the end. This year he delivered spirit and soul very early. From the last games of the regular season of the championship, it showed that the situation would hardly be reversed. Unlike other years when PAS fought to the end and was competitive. We remember what happened with previous relegations.
In the 1983-84 season, they were relegated in a play-off match against Panionios in Larissa, where they lost in extra time with a score of 2-0, in a year where a lot happened. The two historical teams tied in the penultimate position and resolved the differences in a play-off match, since then there were no other criteria. He managed to immediately return to the A’ National team the following year.
The second relegation was in the 1986-87 season due to the PAE strike and the endless relegations that followed. The PAE of the A’ National Team claimed greater subsidies from OPAP and abstained from the competitive events. However, the strike was broken by the teams Olympiacos, Panathinaikos, Panionios, OFI who went down to the stadium normally, with the result that the teams that were on strike were zero. PAS was on the strike block with two losses.
In the 1990-91 season, despite the financial problems it had, it was relegated in the last game of the league, losing 3-0 to Larissa in the packed “Zosimades” stadium. This relegation marked the beginning of the stone ages and a decade that no Ioannitian wants to remember. He returned to the A’ National team in the summer of 2000 in classification matches with Panserraikos and Aegaleo at the old AEK stadium in New Philadelphia.
In the 2000-01 season, it was relegated to a triple play-off with OFI, two of which took place in Rhodes and one in Ioannina. The Cretan team had been punished with home exclusion, due to incidents that took place in “Yedi Koule”, in the match against Panachaiki. And instead of an intermediate stadium in Athens being designated as the seat for the play-offs, Rhodes was designated so that the Gianniotes could not have access! Instead of punishing OFI, they actually punished PAS! “Ajax” was relegated in the third decisive play-off at the stadium of the emerald island.
He immediately returned to the First National Team and was relegated to the Second National Team in the 2002-03 season, for non-competitive reasons due to debts to former players. Dozens of PAE were in debt at the time, even big ones, such as AEK, PAOK, Aris, but for punishment they only targeted PAS Ioannina, resulting in the uprising of the residents and the blocking of roads for three days.
PAS was also relegated in the 2009-10 season, during the era of Giorgos Christovasilis, losing the category mathematically in the penultimate matchday when they lost in Heraklion 1-0 to Ergotelis with a non-existent penalty by Leal. And that year he took it all the way.
“Ajax of Epirus” was also relegated in the 2018-19 season, but in the last matchday, when they lost 2-0 to PAOK in Ioannina and at the same time OFI, who were also fighting for survival, won with a score of 2-0 Fearless in Peristeri. It was an unfair relegation, without VAR, and with results altered by the bad referees of Ioannis Papadopoulos and Tasos Papapetrou in the games with Astera Tripoli in Ioannina (1-1) and Panionio in Nea Smyrni (2-1 loss).
This year, they were formally relegated two games before the end of the playoffs and with a 10-point gap to Volos above the line. It is the first relegation to the second national team where it has not been able to make a reaction and claim the stay for a long time. From now on, the interest is focused on the administrative shares of PAE and the competitive part takes a back seat and the substantial cost of relegation will be seen in its true dimensions after the end of the games, when the planning for the new season begins and there will be no cannulas of the revenues from NOVA, infrastructures and OPAP. Then they will realize what those who made the big mistakes and threw the ship on the rocks really did, while they had a situation laid by years in the Super League and with a few right moves and transfers they could have PAS in the big division forever.