Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis is spending the international break firmly ignoring the mounting turmoil at the club and sparring with Boris Johnson about the Ukraine war.
It may be tasteless to evangelise a man with such a (reportedly) shady past. A man whose planet-sized ego needs to be satiated at all costs, regardless of the impact on others.
But, with increasingly regimented personalities masquerading as characters on the pitch, Marinakis is a larger-than-life antidote to the po-faced seriousness of elite-level football in 2025.
His strident declaration that Morgan Gibbs-White would not be sold to Tottenham, and subsequently forcing the player to sing his praises on camera, was a masterpiece of not giving a solitary eff.
Which leads us nicely to his extracurricular chat with a former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
While Forest fans are sweating over the future of manager Nuno Espirito Santo, reportedly unhappy with dealings at the club, the owner is busy throwing Ukraine to the Russian wolves.
Speaking at the Fifth Thessaloniki Metropolitan Summit, Marinakis argued that the war between Russia and Ukraine needed to end immediately, even if Ukrainian territory was ceded to the invader, to prevent further death.
“Managing the crisis is not the solution; what we want is the resolution of the crisis,” he stressed.
“A potential agreement for peace in the region of Ukraine could possibly also help global trade.”
Spare a thought for the recently signed Oleksandr Zinchenko, who has been an unofficial ambassador for his country during its desperate hour.
Johnson was an odious Prime Minister, but his one redeeming feature was his support of Ukraine in the face of Russia’s invasion in 2022.
Appearing at the summit while on holiday in Greece, he argued that allowing Russia to seize parts of Ukraine’s homeland would be as shameful as allowing Czechoslovakia to be picked off by Adolf Hitler in 1939.
🚨🇬🇷🇬🇧 NEW: Evangelos Marinakis and Boris Johnson argue over the war in Ukraine
Marinakis: “What I would prefer is for children to stop dying and let Russia keep parts of Ukraine”
Johnson: “Which pieces of Ukraine would you give away? Which piece of Czechoslovakia would you… pic.twitter.com/EZF5cZxoLU
— Politics Global (@PolitlcsGlobal) September 5, 2025
We’re loath to side with Johnson in any argument and will be scrubbing ourselves clean afterwards, but he’s in the right here. Appeasing Russia now will only store up trouble for the future.
Nevertheless, the whole exchange was the dictionary definition of surreal. The Greeks are famous for smashing plates, but Marinakis is showing an aptitude for spinning them instead.
Marinakis is the founder and chairman of Capital Maritime & Trading Corp, an international shipping company, and was voted Greek Shipping Personality of the Year by British publication Lloyd’s List in 2017.
He has also invested in the media and his company, Alter Ego Media, bought two of Greece’s best-known daily newspapers – Ta Nea and To Vima.
In 2019, he launched a new television channel, One Channel, in Greece. Earlier this year, his Alter Ego Media company, the largest media organisation in Greece, floated on the Athens stock market.
As well as owning Forest, Marinakis bought Olympiakos in 2010.
In short, Marinakis is a busy man even without his role as mediator in the off-pitch drama at the City Ground.
Forest fans bracing themselves for the worst will be hoping Marinakis’s attempts at breaking bread are far more considered than his suggestions for the people of Ukraine.
By Michael Lee
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