Giannis Sfairopoulos
DOB: 21.03.1967
City of Birth: Thessaloniki
Nationality: Greek
Current Club: Red Star Belgrade
Representative of the "golden", new, generation of Greek coaches Giannis Sfairopoulos debuted as a head coach in 2008 with Kolossos Rhodes. However, he had received the "baptism of fire" at the end of the 2000-01 season as he was promoted from assistant coach to the head coach of PAOK. Born in 1967, Giannis Sfairopoulos, began his coaching career in 1986 and has worked in 33 consecutive seasons since then. In the area of Thessaloniki where he grew up, Kalamaria, as a member of Apollon, he took over the team’s academies and after 8 years, at the age of 27 he became the first coach of the men's basketball team competing in the 2nd and 3rd Division of Greek basketball. After Apollon Kalamarias (1994-97), he became assistant coach at PAOK where he stayed 8 consecutive seasons, while at the same period from 2001 to 2004, as well as the 2009-10 season, he was assistant coach at the Greek National Team. In 2005, he joined Olympiacos, where he stayed for three years alongside with head coach Jonas Kazlauskas, Pini Gerson and Panagiotis Giannakis, while he was expected to return as the head coach six years later after giving his credentials to Kolossos Rhodes. In the interim he worked as an assistant coach with Jonas Kazlauskas at CSKA Moscow. In 2014, after Panionios, Olympiacos entrusted him to lead the team and Sfairopoulos led the Reds to two Euroleague finals (2015 and 2017) and to two Greek championships (2015, 2016). In the summer of 2018 he took over Maccabi Tel Aviv, which he has regenerated after winning the Israel Championship in 2019. On December 15th 2019, Maccabi announced the signing with Sfairopoulos for three more years.