Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis has outlined the “global project” he has in the pipeline as he looks to link up with former Arsenal sporting director Edu.
In addition to the Reds, Marinakis also owns Greek giants Olympiacos and Portuguese outfit Rio Ave. He is keen to add to his stable of clubs, with Brazilian side Vasco da Gama in his sights.
Edu stepped down from his role at the Emirates Stadium last month and is in line to take up a post overseeing the Marinakis conglomerate. And the Greek businessman has big ambitions for the future.
"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,” Marinakis told Sky Sports.
"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.”
He added: “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."
Marinakis confirmed talks have been held about taking over another club. And he explained why expanding into the Brazil market is a priority.
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Premier League
"There are discussions and what I can say is that whatever I want to get involved in needs to be something major,” said the shipping magnate. 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."
Marinakis added: "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.”
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