{"id":6986,"date":"2026-02-11T10:09:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T08:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ailf.gr\/?post_type=team&#038;p=6986"},"modified":"2026-02-12T13:54:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T11:54:18","slug":"demis-nikolaidis","status":"publish","type":"team","link":"https:\/\/ailf.gr\/en\/authors\/demis-nikolaidis\/","title":{"rendered":"Demis Nikolaidis"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"6986\" class=\"elementor elementor-6986 elementor-6983\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-e30efd2 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"e30efd2\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-71da41c\" data-id=\"71da41c\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-dedb5c9 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"dedb5c9\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p style=\"text-align:justify\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"font-family:&quot;Calibri&quot;,sans-serif\">Born\nin 1973, Demis Nikolaidis is one of the most iconic Greek football players. An\ninternational striker with 54 appearances and 17 goals with the national Greek\nteam, he made history as part of the squad that triumphed at the 2004 Euro\ntournament. Throughout his illustrious career, he became deeply associated with\nAEK Athens FC both on the field and off, eventually becoming club president. He\nalso played for Atl\u00e9tico Madrid in 2003, bringing his professionalism and\neffectiveness to one of the most popular sports leagues globally, the Spanish\nPrimera Divisi\u00f3n.&nbsp; <o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p><p style=\"text-align:justify\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"font-family:&quot;Calibri&quot;,sans-serif\">Throughout\nhis career, Nikolaidis stood out on the field not only for his technical skill\nand striker\u2019s instinct, but also for his sportsmanship. His commitment to fair\nplay was made manifest when he informed the referee of an invalid goal he had\nscored during a Greek cup final, a landmark act of sporting ethos in the\nhistory of Greek football which was awarded the Fair Play Award by the\nInternational Olympic Committee. Always a romantic defender of the noble\nsporting ideal, he has publicly condemned violence, racism and discrimination.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p><p style=\"text-align:justify\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"font-family:&quot;Calibri&quot;,sans-serif\">The\npast few years he has been speaking openly about the relation between football\nand mental health, making an essential contribution to the public discourse\naround mental resilience, handling failure and the challenges faced by athletes\nafter the end of their careers. Through his constant presence on sports media,\nhe tirelessly advocates for a vision of sports that is more humane, conscious\nand inclusive. <o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p><p align=\"justify\">\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p><p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\" style=\"font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;\nmso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-font-family:\nCalibri;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Born in 1973, Demis Nikolaidis is one of the most iconic Greek football players. An international striker with 54 appearances and 17 goals with the national Greek team, he made history as part of the squad that triumphed at the 2004 Euro tournament. Throughout his illustrious career, he became deeply associated with AEK Athens FC [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":6984,"menu_order":110,"template":"","team_category":[88,73],"class_list":["post-6986","team","type-team","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","team_category-author"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ailf.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/team\/6986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ailf.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/team"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ailf.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/team"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ailf.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/team\/6986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7152,"href":"https:\/\/ailf.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/team\/6986\/revisions\/7152"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ailf.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ailf.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"team_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ailf.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/team_category?post=6986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}