The Hellenic Sambo Federation was established in 2001, with the initiative of Merabi and Grigorios Iliadis. During all these years of sambo development the number of clubs swelled from 25 to 45 clubs. The federation was accredited by the Ministry of Sport on March 4, 2004.
Merabi Iliadis has become the president of Hellenic sambo federation in 2002 and the vice-president of the European sambo federation in 2004. Chatzoglakis Georgiosis is the General Secretary of the Hellenic sambo federation since 2008. There are 5 international referees and 4 national coaches in Greece.
Annually the federation organises the national sambo and combat sambo championships and the national team tournament. The number of participants is about 500, 400 men and 100 women athletes. The competitions are held in all age categories. The most popular sport clubs are as follows: Filippos, Megas Alexandros from Amintaio, Patrida, Pontos from Thessaloniki, Atlas from Ptolemaida, Sambo Moudania from Chalkidiki, Mirmanis from Ksanthi, Patrida from Thessaloniki, Mithridatis, EOS Aharnon, Olympionikis from Athens.
Besides these tournaments, the Greek athletes participate in "ELLENIADA". Promotional activity covers numerous articles in the newspapers and television programmes dedicated to martial arts.
Since 2002 the Hellenic sambo federation has participated in many international sambo competitions such as the European sambo championships, the world sambo championships, international tournaments of “A” and “B” categories and the World cups. The first medal to the Greek team came in 2002 in Kuneo (Italy). The Greek athlete Choumpoulouri Levan won the gold medal in the European sambo championship.
The Greek athletes successfully perform at the international level, among them are: Iliadis Vasileios, Iliadis Dionysios, Iliadis Moisis, Iliadis Ilias, Zintiridis Vaza, Zintiridis Tariel, Zintiridis Revazi, Azoidis Georgios, Gkaraklov Paulos, Ntanatsidis Alexios, Masmanidis Tedore, Moustopoulos Roman, Andreadis Georgios and others.