1980–81 AEK Athens F.C. season

AEK entered the decade, essentially closing one of their most successful historical periods, since this season was the last year of Loukas Barlos at the management of the club. That was the second championship since the establishment of the professional football in Greece. AEK did not compete in any UEFA competitions this year, thus they played in the Balkans Cup instead.

AEK with their veteran player and 1963 champion with the yellow-black jersey, Miltos Papapostolou on the bench started ideally the league achieving a 6 wins in a row. Among others, they beat PAOK away and Olympiacos at home, as a result they were named by many as favorite for the title early on. It was noteworthy that AEK set an all time ticket record at home, after 36,766 tickets were sold in the league game against Panathinaikos.[1] However, the continuation was not proportionate. AEK, although they finished the championship having by far the best attack with 63 goals and Dušan Bajević as their top scorer with 12, were betrayed by their mediocre defensive performance. The second round of the championship was not good for the team, culminating in the derby with Olympiacos at Karaiskakis Stadium. AEK went down in the match having 2 points less than the first Olympiacos and were looking for the victory that would bring them to top of the standings. Nevertheless, they play a terrible game and a disastrous second half, where they conceded 5 goals in 27 minutes and experienced one of the worst defeats in their history by 6–0. However, the defeat and the match was overshadowed by the tragic events at gate 7 of the stadium, where the fans, trying to leave the field, were trapped and many were trampled, resulting in the death of 21 people and the injury of more than 50 people.[2] At the end of the season AEK finished at the second place five points behind Olympiacos, but were not qualified for any European competition, carrying a ban[3] from the previous season.

In the Greek Cup, AEK eliminated Egaleo in the first round and the title defender, Kastoria in the second round. Afterwards, they eliminated Panathinaikos at the round of 16 and Aris in the quarter-finals. In the semi-finals they were drawn with PAOK and faced elimination by 2 defeats without scoring a single goal.[4]

In the Balkans Cup, AEK were eliminated in the group stage, where all three teams were on par with 2 wins and 2 defeats, thus Velež Mostar with a better goal ratio were qualified to the final of the institution.[5]

At the end of the season Barlos left AEK Athens, after seven years, as a result of the dire financial situation that came from his involvement with the club, but also due to his inability to adapt to the new model of professional football, fearing alienation through the professionalism that was entering into the field of football. At the end of the year, one of the stars of the team, Dušan Bajević, left with him.[7]

• AEK Athens F.C. Official Website