Forum Group’s Bill Papas claims he still owns Xanthi FC despite telling Federal Court otherwise

Forum figure Bill Papas has emerged from his Greek hideaway to tell local sport authorities he still owns high-profile soccer club Xanthi FC – despite telling Australian courts the opposite.

Forum figure Bill Papas has reportedly attended a meeting in Greece to tell sporting authorities he still owns Xanthi FC.

Forum Group chief executive Bill Papas has told Greek sporting authorities he owns the high-profile national soccer club Xanthi FC – despite telling Australian courts the opposite.

Mr Papas, who allegedly masterminded a $500m fraud against Forum’s lenders Westpac, Sumitomo and Societe General, was hauled before the Greek Committee for Professional Sports on Monday evening, Australian time, to explain his ownership in the team.

Mr Papas fled to Greece, and he and his Forum business are the target of a civil suit brought by the banks. His local assets have subsequently been frozen, although liquidators recently sold his luxury Sydney home for around $4.4m. His two waterfront properties on the NSW Central Coast are expected to sell for more than $20m.

Representatives of Westpac were in attendance at the meeting on Monday, which was held after Greek authorities opened an investigation into Xanthi FC’s ownership in September.

Greek publication Thraki Sports reported that Mr Papas had told the committee that he was still in control of the team and his claim that he had sold the stake “does not mean that it is true”. Mr Papas told the Federal Court, in an affidavit, that he’d sold his stake in Mazcon, an entity he used to buy and control Xanthi FC.

The bank has been seeking to claw back the allegedly defrauded funds, including targeting Mazcon, which owns 94.4 per cent of Xanthi FC and four properties in the Greek city of Thessaloniki. A Westpac spokesman declined to comment.

Mr Papas is understood to have spent almost $15m on buying the team, with court documents alleging he used other companies to funnel cash to the team.

The Federal Court heard Mr Papas sent €420,000 ($663,000) to Greece by purchasing tea promotions company Theion IKE, while another €1.5m made its way there via a buy-in to D&D Group, purportedly a wholesaler of nuts and wheat.

But in a statement of his assets submitted to the Federal Court, Mr Papas said he’d sold his share in Mazcon “in or about March 2021”.

Westpac’s counsel, Jeremy Giles, has previously said the bank does not accept that statement is accurate.

Bill Papas seen in his hideaway in Thessaloniki, Greece.

On Monday, Greek media reported that Mr Papas told the Greek authorities that his evidence about the sale of his stake in Mazcon was not correct. “According to information, Bill Papas did not deny the authenticity of this document, however, he claimed that a statement made in the context of a civil case in an ongoing foreign court does not mean that it is true,” a report published by Thraki Sports reads. “He reiterated that he was and remains the owner of Mazcon (and through it he is the owner of Xanthi).”

Xanthi FC chief executive Anastasios Giamouridis owns one per cent of Mazcon.

Westpac has moved to freeze Mr Giamouridis’ assets, alleging he took $10.7m in funds from one of Mr Papas’ companies.

Mr Papas recently attempted to raise €4.72m ($7.52m) through the issuance of new shares in Xanthi FC, diluting his stake in the club. The 4.31 million new shares, valued at €95 each, would have allowed him to scale back his stake in Xanthi FC.

Mr Papas remains a free man – despite Westpac securing warrants for his arrest in October – after the Federal Court found he had “repeatedly disobeyed" court orders.

But Mr Papas told the Monday meeting that the legal action had done nothing to damage Xanthi FC’s reputation since he “has not even been prosecuted in Australia and any issues he faces with the banks there are of a purely civil nature and in no case criminal”.

Separately, the Financial Review reported on Tuesday that Sydney Olympic FC was preparing to fight claims from Forum Group liquidators for $3.34m connected to Mr Papas.

The club has denied receiving a loan to that amount from Mr Papas’ companies.

Mr Papas was a former president of the club.

Forum Group collapsed last year after, Westpac claims, one of its customers discovered an anomaly in a lease agreement with their name on it. An internal investigation by the bank later concluded that it had paid hundreds of millions of dollars to Forum Group for various office equipment leases which were forged, the Federal Court heard.

The Rozelle home sold by liquidators was a central part of the legal action in August, when it emerged Mr Papas’s business associate, Vincenzo Tesoriero, had attempted to sell the property for a cut price of around $3.1m despite being purchased in 2018 for $4.1m.

Originally published as Forum Group’s Bill Papas claims he still owns Xanthi FC despite telling Federal Court otherwise