AEK Athens turned down the chance to clinch a spot in the Champions League preliminary rounds when they decided on Thursday they would not appeal against a defeat to PAOK Thessaloniki the night before.

A dozen PAOK players went into the crucial Greek Super League contest in Athens with expired health booklets.

The game ended 0-0, keeping PAOK in second place, three points ahead of AEK with one round of matches left. A successful appeal would have given the Athens team victory and also resulted in a three-point deduction for the visitors.

AEK said an appeal would be wrong.

"AEK announces that it will not exercise the legal right of objection against the validity of its match with PAOK," said the club. "The unshakable and time-honoured position of our team is that games are won and lost on the pitch and not on paper."

"Let's hope that this small step of ours will turn into a leap towards the total change of direction of our football," the AEK statement said.

In the last round on Sunday, AEK, who have 69 points, face Olympiakos, who have already clinched the league title and have 88 points. PAOK will playing at home against their cross-town rivals Aris.

PAOK entered Wednesday's contest with 12 of their players with health booklets that had expired on July 5.

The Thessaloniki squad apologised for the error and on Thursday renewed the booklets.

Wednesday's game was PAOK's third since July 5. Olympiakos have called for the punishment of all referees who missed the expired booklets in any of those games saying "it is a huge scandal".

Olympiakos lost at home to PAOK 1-0 on Sunday.

PAOK vice-president Kyriakos Kyriakou praises AEK.

"It is in honour of AEK that they did not exercise the right of objection that they had legally. We must recognise that their decision helps us all to focus on the pitch where points are won or lost. This does not reduce the magnitude of our negligence. I apologise to our fans who had to suffer such a wound," Kyriakou said.