Georgios (George) Helakis () is a

Greek Greek may refer to: 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 of all kno ...

sports journalist, famous for his passionate live radio broadcasting of international football matches, particularly Champions League and

2004 UEFA European Championship The 2004 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2004, was the 12th edition of the UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial football competition contested by the men's national teams of UEFA member associations. The ...

. During Euro 2004 opening match he compared the

Greece national football team The Greece national football team (, ) represents Greece in men's international Association football, football matches, and is controlled by the Hellenic Football Federation, the governing body for football in Greece. Greece is one of only ten ...

to a ''pirate ship'', a name which has become the official nickname of the squad since Greece won the tournament. Born in the village Seliana in

Aigeira Aigeira () (, or Αἴγειρα, ) is a town and a former municipality in northeastern Achaea, West Greece, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it has been a municipal unit of the Aigialeia municipality, with an area of 103.646 ...

in 1964, Helakis is co-owner and commentator for numerous sports media outlets, including ''SportDay'' (Greece's best selling sports daily) and SportFM (Greece's most popular sports radio station). For a short period in the late 2000s, he had also been chairman of Panegialios FC, the semi-professional club of his home town. Beyond his media-related activities, Helakis is well known as a left-wing activist. The influence of his political ideas is obvious when commenting on matches, citing examples from history and politics and reminding listeners and readers that football must not be used to express national superiority or nationalistic ideas. In the 1980s he was a member of the

Communist Party of Greece The Communist Party of Greece (, ΚΚΕ; ''Kommounistikó Kómma Elládas'', KKE) is a Marxist–Leninist political party in Greece. It was founded in 1918 as the Socialist Workers' Party of Greece (SEKE) and adopted its current name in Novem ...

, but after the party split in 1991, he joined the Coalition of the Left (Synaspismos). In the party's 2004 national congress he was elected in the Central Committee of the party, and in the 2007 legislative election he was a candidate for the

Coalition of the Radical Left The Coalition of the Radical Left – Progressive Alliance (), best known by the syllabic abbreviation SYRIZA ( ; ; a pun on the Greek adverb , meaning "from the roots" or "radically"), is a centre-left to left-wing political party in Greece. ...

in the Athens B constituency. He was also candidate for the mayoralty in

Kallithea Kallithea (Greek language, Greek: Καλλιθέα, meaning "beautiful view") is a suburb in Athens#Athens Urban Area, Athens agglomeration and a municipality in South Athens (regional unit), south Athens regional unit. It is the eighth larges ...

''Kathimerini''
10 October 2006 in the 2006 local elections, his platform taking 12 percent of the vote.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Helakis, Georgios 1964 births Living people People from Aigialeia Coalition of Left, of Movements and Ecology politicians Greek football chairmen and investors Greek sports journalists