Demis Nikolaidis

Demis made his debut for the Greek national football team on 26 April 1995 against Russia. Demis became the Greek national team's main source of goals. In 1999, however, along with Michalis Kasapis and Ilias Atmatsidis, Nikolaidis retired from the national team, protesting for injustice in the Greek League. Two years later, after the disappointing tenure of coach Vasilis Daniil was brought to an end following a particularly horrendous series of results, he returned to the international fold. In his first game back, Nikolaidis scored in Greece's 2–2 away draw to England during the 2002 World Cup qualifiers. New coach Otto Rehhagel focused his offense around the quick striker and was rewarded with direct qualification to the Greek team to represent Greece at Euro 2004. Even though struggling with injury, Rehhagel nevertheless included him in his Euro 2004 squad. Greece's new strike force, Zisis Vryzas and Angelos Charisteas, played well enough but Nikolaidis still figured consistently in the team, coming off the bench in all three group games before starting against France, and leading Greece to a tremendous shock victory. After that fine performance, however, Nikolaidis succumbed to a serious injury and did not even dress for Greece's last two games. He amassed 54 caps, netting 17 times for the national team and is amongst the top 6 goalscorers ever for Greece. Without a doubt, he accomplished much during his international career but there are some who wonder if his contribution could have been greater had an injury and a poor run of luck not conspired against him.

With AEK struggling terribly in the wake of Psomiadis' corruption and the prospect of relegation to the fourth division looming, Nikolaidis retired at the relatively young age of 31. His next move, supported by all AEK fans, was to establish a consortium of businessmen and purchase AEK on 27 May 2004,[2] as he had always dreamed. Becoming the club's president, Nikolaidis set a goal that he would remove all debts that AEK owed and make them a force in Europe in the space of 5 years. Himself and technical director Ilija Ivić, a former teammate, made several clever signings and fought ferociously for the league title, finishing third when many had expected a mid-table performance. In his second year as president, after signing two promising Greece Under-21 players, as well as adding former star Vasilis Lakis, Ukrainian international striker Oleh Venhlinskyi and one time Inter centre back Bruno Cirillo, AEK achieved UEFA Champions League qualification. Apart from the improvement of the economic standards and the athletic performance of AEK, Nikolaidis was determined to decrease the hooligan actions in football, and called on the league to do more to reduce violence.[3]

On 2 November 2008, Demis decided that he would quit as chairman of AEK after continuously poor results, stating that he had not achieved his goal in the 5 years plan. One of the reasons according to Nikolaidis for quitting was that the team didn't sell 30,000 season tickets; he stated "If I had managed to convince the AEK supporters to come to the stadium then I would not be leaving. In my mind we need 30,000 to become a big team". During Nikolaidis's presidency, AEK had their first wins in Champions' League and the club made about 12,000,000 euros from selling players to other teams (like Kostas Katsouranis, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Dániel Tőzsér, Sotirios Kyrgiakos etc.).

Demis is married to a Greek singer Despina Vandi who was also born in Germany and grew up in Greece. They have a daughter named Melina (2004), and a son named Giorgos (2007). A Discovery Channel documentary entitled Europe's Richest People estimated Nikolaidis and Vandi's combined fortune to be in excess of €25 million in 2014.

• He is the second Greek goalscorer in European competitions scoring a total of 26 goals.
• He is one of the few player who have scored five goals in a single Greek Super League game. He did so in AEK Athens' 6–1 win against Kalamata during the 1996–97 season.
• He scored Greece's 500th goal on 6 October 2001 in a match against England.