Evangelos Marinakis: Combustible Nottingham Forest owner behind extraordinary attacks on officials

Evangelos Marinakis could be compared to a prizefighter this season. The frame of Nottingham Forest’s owner has been slimmer than usual after a regime that has seen kilos shed like a boxer in training. When it has come to throwing punches, his fight has been against refereeing and the weight of decisions against his team.

The physical change in Marinakis, 56, has been noticeable to those who know him. A lover of fresh fish from his home town of Piraeus in the Athens urban area, he has altered his diet and the results have been dramatic. It was a leaner Marinakis who stormed the pitch to confront Paul Tierney after March’s defeat by Liverpool but such a turbulent relationship with officials has been constant, dating further back than the current season.

Defeat against Everton at the weekend saw three penalty decisions go against Forest, who went nuclear. “We warned the PGMOL that the VAR is a Luton fan before the game but they didn’t change him. Our patience has been tested multiple times,” Forest stated on X. The post has triggered investigations from FA and Premier League.

It is worth noting the final sign-off on these matters is Marinakis, whose patience on all football matters often wears thin.

One television in the directors’ box at the City Ground bore the brunt when Arsenal won at Forest in January, Marinakis’s shoe put through the plasma screen in frustration. Or the thrashing by Fulham before Christmas, with Marinakis seemingly storming out of Craven Cottage mid-match, a security lanyard with his name and photo found in a nearby garden.

When his team has not upset him this season, referees have. Some of the decisions have been clear errors, such as Willy Boly’s second yellow card of the match against Bournemouth. Other red cards have gone against them such as Joe Worrall’s “last-man” dismissal at Manchester United, while Marinakis had enough in the Liverpool match and was seen on the pitch after full-time.

The Greek mogul was born into the shipping industry, growing his father Miltiadis’s business after his passing. His company Capital Maritime & Trading Corp is said to have a fleet of more than 80 vessels. His association with football has been for the last 14 years since he became owner of Olympiacos, where his father had been a shareholder.

In his time as Olympiacos president the club have won seven of the past 10 titles and have seen a rapid turnover of players that preceded Forest’s spending spree when they reached the Premier League. It has not been without controversy for Marinakis either.

He and 67 others were named by authorities in the 2015 match-fixing scandal in Greece. Marinakis, who always denied any involvement, was acquitted before the matter went to trial. His relationship with officials, however, was combative and while the statement from Forest at the weekend was a jaw-dropper in the Premier League, it came as no surprise to Olympiacos supporters. It has followed a pattern of behaviour for Marinakis from his time in Greek football.

“English football fans have probably never read an #OlympiacosFC 500-word press release after a poor reffing performance,” read a post on X from “Gate 7 International”, an Olympiacos fans’ group. “This right here is light work. Welcome to show time! #NFFC”.

They became used to pointed comments at refereeing performances with Marinakis as president. Regardless of how Forest’s statement was received at the weekend – embarrassing, according to Alan Shearer – fans of Marinakis’s clubs know that he cares. On his left arm, Marinakis has a tattoo that reads: “Dream, Love, Create, Fight, Survive, Win.” And there is certainly fight left in him.

It was only in 2021 that he was banned in Greece for five months from entering the field of play after verbally abusing a referee. There was also a £26,000 fine for abusing referee Tassos Sidiropoulos following a 1-1 draw with Aris Thessaloniki.

At Forest, his appetite for taking on the authorities could be seen before his team made it back to the Premier League. In 2022 he had just seen his side defeated by Bournemouth in a game originally postponed by Storm Eunice. His cogent argument was that Kieffer Moore had been injured when they had first been scheduled to play, so should not have been available for the rescheduled fixture. Such was his frustration that he called the local radio station to make his opinion known.

That campaign still ended in promotion, taking Marinakis’s profile to another level as a Premier League owner. How will he be remembered? There are still memes of the squad photo after 43 players were signed when a return to the top-flight was secured.

There is currently an asterisk by Forest in the table, pointing to a footnote: *Nottingham Forest deducted four points following a breach of the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules. That decision is currently under appeal*.

But increasingly he is being known as the owner who is taking on referees and officials.