Evangelos Marinakis exclusive: Nottingham Forest owner talks VAR, ambition, multi-club structure and more

Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis insists the club’s ambitions to finish in the top six of the Premier League are realistic, in an exclusive sit-down interview with Sky Sports from his Piraeus base.

In only their third season back in the top flight – after that long-awaited promotion from the Championship – Nuno Espirito Santo has guided the Tricky Trees to sixth, with six wins from their first 14 games, and the 57-year-old is certain there is more to come in the future.

It was one of a number of topics the Greek billionaire discussed with Sky Sports News senior reporter Rob Dorsett during his most revealing UK interview yet; Meeting Marinakis, which is available on demand and on YouTube.

As he sat down with Dorsett in Piraeus, he spoke about his passion, learning about Forest during his time in England in the 1980s, his ongoing gripes with VAR, the January transfer window and more.

Rob Dorsett: I don’t think a lot of people know you, certainly in England. How would you describe yourself?

Evangelos Marinakis: “I have a passion for what I do and I have reached that stage very quickly. I have been lucky enough – or capable, or a combination – since I was very young to have business success. Because of this success, I could afford to do things that I enjoy most.

“My business, shipping, is something that gives me a lot of pleasure to work. It’s very international, it’s a global business and you need to compete with very big companies, even state companies around the world where there is no politics as such. You need to be capable enough, you need to be strong enough in order to compete and you need to be smart and make quick decisions in order to be able to compete and be successful with very big companies in the industry.”

RD: That strikes me as you loving a challenge, in business and in football…

EM: “This is something that gives me satisfaction and what I enjoy most is the journey. When you have the success, when you have the victory, maybe you feel a bit tired, you feel a bit stressed and even though everybody is celebrating next to you and with you, you don’t enjoy it as much. But the journey to reach the victory, this is what makes a lot of sense and I get a big satisfaction out of it.”

RD: You never seem to rest on your laurels and think you’ve achieved enough. It wasn’t enough to get Nottingham Forest into the Premier League, that was just the start. It wasn’t enough to get Olympiacos into European competition, that was just the start. Are you always hungry for more?

EM: “You need to put in endless effort, but at the same time, during this journey, [you need] to have also enormous happiness in what you do. You can become passionate about it, you can have arguments in order to protect your team, your interests. The people of Piraeus are the people of Nottinghamshire.

“With what I’m involved in in business, you have a lot of employees, the crews of the vessels, the people in the office and, in football, it’s the players, it’s the supporters, it’s the technical staff around and what we do has to do with the people, 100 per cent. It’s good to have good facilities, or to have very good vessels, modern vessels, in shipping. But if you have all this and you don’t have a good captain, or a capable captain, or capable players, it means nothing. So I think the power is the people, it’s not myself.

“The power comes from the people, either the ones that you work together or your supporters. I think that the human skills make the difference. What you must do all the time is work hard. The people next to you need to see that so they can do the same. And you need to be there to inspire them to do it and to do it in a way that is competitive, a way that can bring victory.

“You need to have a winning spirit all the time and you need to have this from the guy who cleans the facilities, up to the president, up to the owner, up to the coach, up to the captain of the team. All of them should be able to work together, to be together. The togetherness in whatever you do is extremely important. That’s why, whenever I talk, I don’t speak about myself; I use words that have to do with all of us. We do it.”

RD: You’ve just taken charge of the first Greek side ever to win a major European trophy…

EM: “Two! It was the first time in history in UEFA that a team won both competitions [the U19 team won the UEFA Youth League].”

RD: I know that you took the Europa Conference League trophy to your father’s grave to share that with him.

EM: “His grave is here in Piraeus, but also we sent it to Crete, where he came from and, of course, all over Greece. It was a special moment because it’s important to show what I have done to the person who inspired me to do this. It’s good not to forget your roots, for all of us. It was something that I had promised to myself, and it happened.”

RD: Let’s talk about Forest, because they’re on a real high as well. Nottingham Forest are being talked about at the top of the Premier League. How special is that?

EM: “For me, that was the target from the beginning. When I first said it, people said it’s crazy or it’s b*******. But, for me, this is important, otherwise I wouldn’t do it. If Forest weren’t a big team, I wouldn’t get involved. For me, it’s the memories that I have.

“It was when I was first visiting England and then I stayed in England. That was at the beginning of the 1980s and there were two teams at the time: Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. They wore the same colour as Olympiacos red. We’re talking about thousands or millions of supporters.

“You can see it with the teams that I’m involved with, these two teams in Greece and in England. Olympiacos is the biggest team, by far, in Greece. Half of the Greek population supports Olympiacos and Nottingham Forest is one of the very big teams in England, both in what we have achieved and also with the supporter base. For me, this is very important.

“We have a multi-club ownership and a lot see it as business. I don’t necessarily see it this way. It’s very difficult to combine business with football, especially with big teams when you need to win trophies, you need to participate in Europe.

“It doesn’t necessarily mean that you can make money – the opposite in a lot of cases. We don’t have an unlimited budget, we are not a state company or a company that can afford each year to lose money. We need to find the balance between what we spend and what we can achieve. Of course it’s not easy; this needs a lot of hard work, but we try our very best to be able to be competitive at a cost that is affordable nowadays.

RD: Is it realistic to think you could regularly compete with the big six?

EM: “Yes, I think that is realistic. And it’s up to us at the end of the day. I think it’s very important to take responsibility. So I take responsibility in the bad times; in the good times we can share this responsibility.

“It’s something pleasant to share responsibilities during good times and victories, but in the difficult times you need to take responsibility, correct your mistakes and act accordingly so you can recover and fight back and come back and win.”

RD: It will be a huge coup if negotiations progress and Arsenal’s departing sporting director Edu, somebody who is so well thought of in the game, comes to be part of your group.

EM: “Edu was a very good player and also a very good sporting and technical director. I have a lot of respect for him. The results we saw over the years at Arsenal were very good and he has done an excellent job at Arsenal.

“What I can say is that I would like to cooperate with him on a much bigger project, a global project. I’m optimistic that in case all this goes ahead, it will be another successful venture for both of us.

“I’m very optimistic about it, but we need to see how this will be developed and will be finalised, if and when time allows.”

RD: That would be quite the statement about your ambition going forward.

EM: “Yes. And I think that there are a lot of people that want to cooperate with us and work with us and that means that they respect us and they appreciate what we do. It gives us satisfaction that what we do is something that is appealing to very good people in the industry.”

RD: I wanted to ask you about the multi-club structure. You’re already in Portugal, Greece and England – and I’m told Italy and Brazil are in your targets as well. Is that right? Possibly Vasco da Gama?

EM: “There are discussions and what I can say is that whatever I want to get involved in needs to be something major. The tradition is very important and it always makes more sense to me to manage or to own.

“But in big clubs where we’re talking about millions of supporters, you don’t consider it as ownership. I cannot use the word that I ‘bought’ Olympiacos or I ‘bought’ Nottingham Forest. This is something huge. It’s for all the supporters, for millions of people, so I cannot see it as a business.

“It’s very important, in whatever I’m involved in, to be a team that has a big supporter base. Portugal is an exception. It’s a smaller team. But what we need to do is for this team also to be upgraded and to be one of the [top] six or seven teams in Portugal. It’s very important because, for us, the Brazilian market is very important.

“We have some very good players that have played over the years in Olympiacos and also now in Nottingham Forest. But in Portugal, Brazilians, they play as Europeans. It’s a gate, let’s say, for Brazilian players into Europe. And for me this is very important for the years to come.”

RD: Your passion, I think, has got you into trouble with the football authorities in England. How do you feel about that?

EM: “The passion is something that you cannot help. Either you have it or you don’t have it. I think it’s very important for the leader of a team, of a business, of an organisation, to try his very best to protect the interests of the team, of the company, of your family.

“I consider Nottingham Forest as a family. So, when you see things that are not right, you can be loud about it. And believe me, so far, whenever we have been loud, we were absolutely right. We live in democratic countries, especially in Greece, where democracy was born.

“So, to have an opinion and to be able to share this opinion with people is not something that I find that is bad or doesn’t make sense. We have seen things that are unbelievable and you need to have the courage and the power to stand by what you say and to be able to prove that what you say is correct.”

RD: Do you mean refereeing decisions?

EM: “Yes. The other thing is, nowadays, in football, we have VAR. So, why do we have VAR? In order to double-check decisions that take place instantly and from different angles. A lot of times, you can make a mistake. But when you have all the time you need to watch from different angles, in a comfortable chair, and you can spend one minute, two minutes, three minutes, four minutes, even five minutes to watch it and watch it again, then it’s very difficult to accept a human mistake.

“Unfortunately, we have seen big mistakes take place with VAR. Being a human being, you are obliged to make mistakes. It’s natural to make mistakes. But when you see repeated mistakes from the same people, this is something that needs to be corrected, and needs to be corrected immediately. Authorities or organisations – the FA, it’s the Premier League, it’s UEFA, it’s FIFA – they have a duty to all of us to rectify all this.

“This duty of responsibility towards the clubs to make sure that there is justice. And when mistakes happen, to be able to rectify them is very important. Sometimes, when this doesn’t happen, someone should be strong enough to be loud about it, in order to prevent similar occasions and also to prevent other teams – not only your team – facing similar situations.

“This is something that I have no regrets [about] and it will continue to be the case. Sometimes it takes longer to prove that you are right and, until this is proven, you might face consequences that can harm your interest or your image, or your business, your club.

“But we are strong enough and we can afford to wait and we can afford to take the blame. For one reason, that when we have little time to relax, I feel good with myself, that I have done it in the right way, which might take time to prove, but it doesn’t matter. The answer is that this will not change and people like myself, or leaders like myself, are needed in today’s society, today’s football, today’s business, to be able to take decisions or to try their very best to prove their points and the correct points. As simple as that.

“No one is perfect. Every one of us is allowed to make mistakes, but we are also allowed to correct these mistakes. What is not allowed is this to be repeated. It’s our duty and responsibility to correct it.

RD: It strikes me that Nottingham Forest have a really big opportunity this season to maybe make a European place. Do you see it like that?

EM: “I see it even higher and I think you need to believe in your dreams. Of course it’s difficult. It might take you more time, it might take years, but you need to have the right mentality and always have targets that are difficult to be achieved. But you try your best.

“You try to persuade your family, your team-mates, the guys that you work with that this is possible. Because nothing is impossible. You should never give up. You should be able to stand up. Try your best, correct your mistake, try again and again and again. And at the end of the day, you’ll be rewarded with a victory. So it’s a matter of time and it’s a matter of patience and hard work and faith.

RD: Do you feel you want to invest heavily in January to try and make that big push for Europe?

EM: “We have the Financial Fair Play that restricts us from unlimited spending.”