Banning Gary Neville seemed petty at the time. Writing to Uefa urging them not to let Crystal Palace into the Europa League was a bit mean.
Threatening to report Tottenham Hotspur to the Premier League over their approach for Morgan Gibbs-White is just plain… well, brilliant, when you think about it.
Each incident in isolation reads as a faintly embarrassing course of action. Take them all together as a collective, and Evangelos Marinakis is becoming the arch-provocateur we didn’t know the Premier League needed.
Most Premier League club owners prefer to act quietly and privately, shielded by walls of confidentiality, hidden by unspoken omerta.
Grievances are raised over telephone calls, or behind closed doors. Many like to be neither seen, nor heard.
Meanwhile, the Nottingham Forest owner waves around a flamethrower, torching everyone and everything that gets in his way. And it is absolute box office.
A day after it was revealed Gibbs-White had a £60m release clause and Spurs had triggered it, and the move seemed full steam ahead with agreements in place and medical booked, it emerged that Forest are considering reporting Spurs to the Premier League.
Yet follow any transfer influencer on social media and an agreement is almost always reached between the player and his new club, before the club officially has permission to speak to them. And secret release clauses are always miraculously met.
Overall, it is better for clubs to ascertain if a player actually wants to join them, and on an agreeable level of terms, than go through the often laborious process of negotiating with their club only for the player to be uninterested, or demand too much money.
While it is breached endlessly, it is reported rarely.
Such a situation occurred in 2017, when Southampton lodged a complaint against Liverpool for allegedly tapping up Virgil van Dijk.
Liverpool apologised, and waited until the following transfer window before signing the player for £75m, so it worked out well for the Saints.
The Premier League did, however, end an investigation after finding insufficient evidence. Read into that what you will.
Don’t get me wrong: Gibbs-White, only 25, with two years left on his contract, is arguably worth well upwards of £60m, given the prices attacking players are going for this summer.
It would be infuriating if your player was suddenly the subject of an exact bid for his confidential release clause. To report it to the Premier League is spiteful genius.
And Forest fans love it. Why wouldn’t you love an owner fighting tooth and nail to keep your best players, to hold together the squad that got you back in Europe for the first time in 30 years?
What’s not to love about an owner pushing for your club to play in a better European competition, no matter how it looks?
Marinakis is like that player you love to have in your team but absolutely hate playing against. A Luis Suarez of the football ownership world.
When he banned Neville – the popular pundit denied access to the City Ground for Forest’s final game of the season against Chelsea and unable to work for Sky Sports – it was branded cringy and classless. But Forest’s fans lapped it up.
You could tell, because they turned up to the game wearing Neville masks and repeatedly chanted about it during the game, with classics that included: “Neville is a w*****!” and “Marinakis, he bans who he wants!”
Marinakis knows his audience, clearly.
Forest lost that game and had to settle for a Conference League place, but when Crystal Palace, who had qualified for the Europa League via the FA Cup, were investigated by Uefa due to potential multi-club ownership breaches, Marinakis spotted an opportunity.
Many would let the process run its course and hope for the best. But then most people aren’t Marinakis.
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Forest wrote to Uefa, sharing their concerns about Palace’s participation.
It had nothing to do with Forest potentially swapping with Palace if Uefa punished them, of course. Nothing at all. This was about integrity and fairness.
And if you believe that, I have some magic beans here to sell you.
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