As a player Georgios Makropoulos belonged to the Greek chess elite in the 70s and 80s.

He has been International Master since 1979 and achieved a Grandmaster norm in the 1980 Banco di Roma tournament.

After the President of FIDE Florencio Campomanes awarded the Chess Olympiad 1986 to Dubai in 1984 and the organizing Chess Federation of the United Arab Emirates then announced that it would not invite the Israeli team, Makropoulos together with Raymond Keene and Don Schultz was member of a negotiation commission, which from the end of 1984 was supposed to find solutions to the crisis that had arisen on behalf of FIDE.

Despite international protests and despite the commission's efforts, the Israeli team did not take part in the Dubai Olympics.

In 2006 Makropoulos supported the renewed candidacy of the FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who prevailed at the congress in Turin against Bessel Kok with 96:54 votes.