In the summer of 1985, AEK "moved" to the Athens Olympic Stadium, due to construction works at the AEK Stadium. Both Olympiacos and Panathinaikos already used the same stadium as their home ground at the time, which resulted in the introduction of league games on Saturday, so that all 3 teams could be served simultaneously. Antonis Georgiadis left the team's bench for Olympiacos, while Zafiropoulos hired Jacek Gmoch, who had won the 1984 double and he had reached the semi-finals of the European Cup with Panathinaikos. Christos Ardizoglou left the club to end his career at Apollon Athens, a team where he started his career, since for various reasons he failed to transfer to Olympiacos. In December, both Vangelis Vlachos and Lysandros Georgamlis left for Panathinaikos and greatly affected the team's later performance in the league. In the transfer period of December, AEK were strengthened with the addition of Greek-Australian expatriate, Jim Patikas.
AEK started the league with two convincing victories against PAOK and Aris, but the continuation was not proportional. The whole season was a year of successive ups and downs in the performance of the team, which could not acquire duration and rhythm. The club presented two different faces in their struggles at home and away matches. While at home they finished undefeated, but with 7 draws that knocked them out of the title race, at the away matches they gathered 7 defeats in 15 games. The team finished at the third place where they were tied with Iraklis, 7 points behind the champion Panathinaikos and 2 behind the second OFI. In the UEFA Cup, AEK were eliminated by the mighty Real Madrid, who were the eventual winners, in the first round, despite winning the first leg at Athens. In the Cup, AEK reached the semi-finals where they were eliminated by Panathinaikos in a margin. Top scorer at the league was Håkan Sandberg with 12 goals and Márton Esterházy in total with 17 goals, while Theologis Papadopoulos had a very good season. One of the few positives of that season was that AEK achieved an average league ticket record in their history with 31,254 tickets per game.[1]
However, the whole season was accompanied by the court thriller that was reserved for the end. AEK were playing in the penultimate matchday in Serres against Panserraikos. ΑΕΚ wanted the victory to stay on track for a ticket to the next season's UEFA Cup. On April 19, at the eve of the match, the general manager of AEK, Giannis Chrysovitsianos, was arrested on the accusation that he tried to bribe the players of Panserraikos, Michalis Galatidis, Giorgos Sfakianakis and Giannis Antoniadis, through Giorgos Rigas, to underperform the game. The match took place normally with Panserraikos winning by 2–0, a result that eventually did not help him avoid relegation. The result of this whole story was that the league standings were not secured, until the case was finalized. Eventually, that happened in mid-June, with AEK being punished with the deduction of 3 points, but from the next season's championship. Thus, the organizing authority decided to conduct a third place play-off match between AEK and Iraklis. Iraklis considered a scandal the decision of the punishment of AEK for next year, as well as the acquittal of OFI for the double doping of their player, Alejandro Hisis. The play-off match was set for June 23 at Volos. The delay of the conduction of the match was such that Esterházy played in the match, after competing with his national team at the FIFA World Cup in Mexico. Meanwhile Gmoch left the club, with Nikos Christidis sitting at the bench for the match. Iraklis, disagreed with the conduction of the play-off match, considering themselves wronged by the non-punishment of AEK for the current season. Nevertheless they were forced to show up in order for the club not to be punished and tried to make a parody of the match. The squad of Iraklis was consisted of only 10 players, since according to their management, the rest of the players were on vacation. At the 53rd minute and while the match was at 0–0, Iraklis were left with 6 players after Zifkas and Karaiskos were sent off, while Santexis and Adamou left injured. According to the regulation, the referee interrupted the match and was awarded 2–0 to AEK, who won the European ticket.[2]
NOTE: The players are the ones that have been announced by the AEK Athens' press release. No edits should be made unless a player arrival or exit is announced. Updated 23 June 1986, 23:59 UTC+3.
a.^ AEK gave as an exchange from their reserve team Kagarakis, Keramiotis and Voulgarelis, plus Dimas and Aravidis as a loan.
b.^ Plus the incomes from a friendly match between the clubs in the following summer.
c.^ During the previous season, Vlachos was at the end of his five-year contract and Zafiropoulos proposed a relatively small offer for a renewal, while the player had also an offer from Vardinogiannis, to move to Panathinaikos, which he accepted.[17] As the club owed him money as well he demanded to move to the "greens" on free. A court series that lasted several months began, which resulted in Vlachos moving for Panathinaikos. The cost of the transfer was ₯16,000,000 in cash plus the incomes from a friendly match between the clubs in the following summer.
Source: RSSSF Rules for classification: 1st points; 2nd head-to-head points; 3rd head-to-head goal difference; 4th decision match. (C) Champions Notes:
^AEK Athens and Iraklis tied at third place with 36 points. Despite AEK was found guilty for bribe against Panserraikos, the HFF punished the club with three points deduction from 1986–87 season. A play-off game was scheduled to play in Volos on 23 June. Iraklis made a protest and showed up with 10 players. At the 53rd minute with the score at 0–0, the match interrupted permanently. At this minute Iraklis after two red cards and 2 injuries, stay with 6 players on the field. The game forfeited to AEK with 2–0.
Note: At the 28th minute, the referee was injured and since the medical assistance did not work, he was forced to leave the match, which started with a 42-minute delay. The first linesman, Panagiotakis took the place of the referee and the position of the linesman was taken by Giakoumatos, after a draw with three other spectators referees. In the interruption, while the score was 2–0, Ethnikos made an objection for the match to be repeated.
Note: Iraklis did not like the court's decision for AEK Athens' punishment and threatened not to show up in the match. After pressure and with the risk of punishment, Iraklis showed up with ten men, who entered the pitch in pairs and thus the match started with a 10-minute delay. Shortly before the match began, Zifkas was injured in the warm-up and Iraklis started the match with 9 players. At the 19th minute Zifkas entered the match and 5 minutes later kicked Pias who reacted and both were sent-off. Karaiskos who was booked from the 4th minute, went to execute every foul of Iraklis and delayed at every execution. At the 45th minute he went to execute a foul and provocatively did not allow the game to be continued. Before the referee approached him to show him the second yellow, he left by himself for the changing rooms and Iraklis was left with 8 players. At the 51st minute, Santexis fell to the ground and was carried off field on a stretcher. 3 minutes later, Adamou tackled Stafylidis and he himself fell to the ground, suffering. He came out with a stretcher and after a 6-minute break Adamou said that he could not continue, resulting in Iraklis were left with only 6 players. By regulation, the match was awarded 2–0 to AEK Athens.[2]
The list is sorted by competition order when total clean sheets are equal and then alphabetically by surname. Clean sheets in games where both goalkeepers participated are awarded to the goalkeeper who started the game. Goalkeepers with no appearances are not included.
