Giorgos Kalafatis ( el, Γιώργος Καλαφάτης; 17 March 1890 – 19 February 1964) was a

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

pioneer, player, coach,

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...

athlete and the founder of Panathinaikos Athens multi-sports club.

Sports career

Greece football team Inter-Allied Games 1919

Being a big athletic talent, he distinguished himself in track and field sports. But

was his big passion. He played for Ethnikos G.S. Athens and when his later club

Panellinios Panellinios G.S. ( Greek: Πανελλήνιος Γ.Σ.), full name, Panellinios Gymnastikos Syllogos ( Greek: Πανελλήνιος Γυμναστικός Σύλλογος), is a Greek multi-sport club that is located in Athens and was founde ...

decided to discontinue its football team, Kalafatis together with 40 other athletes broke away and established in February 1908 the first team of Panathinaikos, named Podosfairikos Omilos Athinon (''Football Club of Athens''). Kalafatis appointed the Englishman John Cyril Campbell as coach for the new team. It was the first time that a foreigner was appointed as the coach of a Greek team. Apart from Giorgos Kalafatis, other establishing members of POA were: his brother Alexandros, who was the first president, Emmanouel Chrysis, Dimitris Doukakis, Periklis Mpoumpoulis, Vasileios Granitsas, Mantzakos, Papageorgiou, Gaetas, Demertzis, Stavropoulos, Paschos, Misakian, Reppas, Sapounias and Garoufalias. In 1919, he was a member of the Greece national team for the

Inter-Allied Games The Inter-Allied Games was a one-off multi-sport event held from 22 June to 6 July 1919 at the newly constructed Pershing Stadium just outside Paris, France following the end of World War I. The host stadium had been built near the Bois de Vin ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

. In Paris, Kalafatis collected information about

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

and

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Sum ...

(sports unknown then in Greece) and after his return to Athens, started his efforts on creating new teams with Panathinaikos. He was a player/manager in the Greece national team for the 1920 Olympic Games in

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

. His older brother, Alexandros, was selected for the unofficial Greek national team that played in the

1906 Summer Olympics The 1906 Intercalated Games or 1906 Olympic Games was an international multi-sport event that was celebrated in Athens, Greece. They were at the time considered to be Olympic Games and were referred to as the "Second International Olympic Games ...

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...

, starting in both games which ended in 1–5 and 0–9 losses. Kalafatis played football until the early 1920s. After he retired, he remained in Panathinaikos as an official.

Personal life

He was born in

Exarcheia Exarcheia ( ) is a community in central Athens, Greece close to the historical building of the National Technical University of Athens. Exarcheia took its name from a 19th century businessman named Exarchos (Greek: Έξαρχος) who opened a larg ...

, which was a few hundred meters away from

Apostolos Nikolaidis Stadium Apostolos Nikolaidis Stadium ( el, Γήπεδο Απόστολος Νικολαΐδης), commonly known as Leoforos Alexandras Stadium or Leoforos Stadium, is a football stadium and multi-sport center in Athens, Greece. It was inaugurated in 19 ...

. The family of Kalafatis was from

Dilinata Dilinata ( el, Διλινάτα) is a village in the municipal unit of Argostoli, Cephalonia, Greece. It is situated on a mountain slope, at 400 m elevation. It is 2 km east of Davgata, 2 km north of Faraklata and 6 km northeast of ...

, a village in the island of

Cephalonia Kefalonia or Cephalonia ( el, Κεφαλονιά), formerly also known as Kefallinia or Kephallenia (), is the largest of the Ionian Islands in western Greece and the 6th largest island in Greece after Crete, Euboea, Lesbos, Rhodes and Chios. It ...

. While being an athlete, he graduated also from the Health Department of the

National and Kapodistrian University of Athens The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA; el, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών, ''Ethnikó ke Kapodistriakó Panepistímio Athinón''), usually referred to simply as the Univers ...

. He pursued a career in the

Hellenic Navy The Hellenic Navy (HN; el, Πολεμικό Ναυτικό, Polemikó Naftikó, War Navy, abbreviated ΠΝ) is the naval force of Greece, part of the Hellenic Armed Forces. The modern Greek navy historically hails from the naval forces of var ...

, taking part in the

Balkan Wars The Balkan Wars refers to a series of two conflicts that took place in the Balkan States in 1912 and 1913. In the First Balkan War, the four Balkan States of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria declared war upon the Ottoman Empire and def ...

and in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

and reaching up to the rank of

rear admiral Rear admiral is a senior naval flag officer rank, equivalent to a major general and air vice marshal and above that of a commodore and captain, but below that of a vice admiral. It is regarded as a two star " admiral" rank. It is often rega ...

. He died on 19 February 1964.

References

External links

Giorgos Kalafatis page at pao.gr
(Greek) {{DEFAULTSORT:Kalafatis, Giorgos 1890 births Hellenic Navy officers Panathinaikos Athletics Panathinaikos F.C. players Panathinaikos F.C. managers Panathinaikos F.C. non-playing staff Panathinaikos A.O. Footballers at the 1920 Summer Olympics Olympic footballers of Greece Founders of association football institutions 1964 deaths Association football forwards Greek football managers Footballers from Athens Greek footballers