Vasilis Papageorgopoulos


Vasilis Papageorgopoulos is a retired Greek sprinter, former mayor of Thessaloniki. He won two medals at the European Indoor Championships as well as the bronze medal in the 100 metres at the 1971 European Championships in Athletics.

Biography

Papageorgopoulos' personal best in 100 metres was 10.22 seconds, achieved in August 1972 in Izmir. This ranks him twelfth among Greek 100 metre sprinters. He also studied medicine.
Papageorgopoulos first got involved in politics in 1978 when he was elected City councilor of Thessaloniki. He practiced dentistry until 1981, when he was elected as a member of the Greek Parliament, representing Thessaloniki, for the Conservative New Democracy party. Papageorgopoulos has been, from 1 January 1999 to 31 December 2010, the mayor of Thessaloniki.

Corruption charges

In April 2011, he was among 25 people contacted by an investigating magistrate with a probe into alleged embezzlement of 51.4 million euros at the municipality. He was also accused by his successor Yiannis Boutaris of providing inaccurate financial figures. In February 2013, he was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment for embezzling of 17.9 million euro at the Municipality of Thessaloniki while he was mayor. In July 2014, the sentence was reduced to a maximum of 20 years after an appeals court in Thessaloniki ruled that Papageorgopoulos's crimes amouned to acting as "accessory to the stealing of municipal funds while in office.”
In July 2015 Papageorgopouloss parole due to health problems.

Honours