Takis Nikoloudis

Iraklis

Nikoloudis was involved in sports from a young age, joining Iraklis. According to the customs of the time, the young athletes were involved in more than one sport within the club, until they chose which one to focus on. Thus, apart from football, Nikoloudis was also active in basketball, even playing for the youth team of Iraklis. His talent in football led him to focus on the sport and, after his participation in all the infrastructure teams of the club, he was promoted to the men's team of Iraklis in 1969. Playing as a holding midfielder, he impressed with his clever game despite his young age. He played with Iraklis for eight consecutive seasons, being one of their best players. However, his career at Iraklis was tarnished when his name was involved in the bribery case. On 28 May 1975, shortly before the semi-final of the Cup between Iraklis and Panathinaikos at Kaftanzoglio Stadium, the former Panathinaikos and Iraklis player, Giorgos Rokidis, following the orders of Antonis Mantzavelakis, an agent of Panathinaikos, visited the team of Iraklis at the hotel, offering money to Nikoloudis and Chaliampalias to have reduced performance in the match. During his Rokidis was holding a bouquet and thus the case was named as the "flower case". The management of Iraklis excluded the two players from the match squad as "disciplinary offense". A judicial process followed, where the guilt of all was documented and at the meeting and vote of the Special Committee of the…

Nikoloudis was a member of Greece U21, which in 1971 won the Balkan Youth Championship, while with the military team he finished at the 3rd place in the World Military Cup in 1972. He made his debut with Greece, on April 7, 1971, in the friendly 0–1 defeat to Bulgaria at home, playing a total of 22 times and scoring 4 goals. Captain of the national team for years, he was an integral part of the qualifying team of Alketas Panagoulias. His best moment with the Greece was on September 12, 1979, when in the 26th minute of the match, after his collaboration with Giorgos Delikaris, against Soviet Union, he scored 1-0 and with this as the final result, the team qualified, for the first time in its history, to the final stage of a major international event, the UEFA Euro 1980 in Italy in which it competed in the only match in which the national team got a point, the 0–0 draw with the eventual champions West Germany.

Nikoloudis was the manager of Veria for a brief period in 1989.

His brother Grigoris was also a football player, who played at Alpha Ethniki, with Makedonikos and Apollon Kalamarias.