Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis is going to town on Crystal Palace after seeking guidance from UEFA on the ongoing issues regarding next season’s Europa League.
Palace finished 12th in the Premier League during 2024/25 but won the FA Cup to steal a Europa League place from Forest, who finished in seventh.
The Eagles, however, have potentially breached the rules on teams under multi-club ownership competing in the same European competition.
John Textor – a good friend of Marinakis – owns 43% of Crystal Palace, whilst he also has a controlling stake in Ligue 1 outfit Lyon, who have also qualified for the Europa League.
The ball is now firmly in the court of UEFA, and the decision will impact both clubs when it comes to plans for the summer transfer window.
Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images
Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images
Finance expert delivers verdict on Evangelos Marinakis and his UEFA request over Crystal Palace
This is all getting a little bit messy, but it would appear as though the Forest owner has every right to try and hurry things through with UEFA.
Ultimately, both clubs need to know what the situation is with transfers and pre-season plans to finalise ahead of any potential European campaign.
We caught up with Adam Williams, a football finance expert, and he believes the Forest chief, Marinakis, has every right to be putting his own business interests first in this instance.
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He exclusively told us: “On one level, I understand the outrage about Forest writing to UEFA over Crystal Palace’s ownership situation. From what I’ve seen, it seems like most Forest fans themselves would have liked the club to stay out of it.
“But if we remove emotion from the equation, Forest have every right to do so. And what’s more, I doubt there is a single club in the Premier League that wouldn’t do the same in their position. They are operating based on self-interest, which is what everyone does.
“In my view, Textor categorically does have a conflict of interest. To say he has no influence at Palace is laughable. Yes, he doesn’t have the level of control he would want, but he has 25 per cent voting rights and a 43 per cent stake in the club. If that isn’t a conflict of interest, we are setting the bar stupidly high for what is.
“Yes, Forest clearly have a relationship with Eagle Football, Textor’s company, through whom his stake in Palace is set up. They have regularly traded players with them. But that’s a relationship based on mutual interests, not an equity link.
“The conflict of interest threshold should be about influence. From what I can see with the previous cases involving the Manchester clubs and their sister clubs, it seems that’s what UEFA is trying to achieve. But multi-club ownership links are so sprawling within football now that we are going to keep running into these issues.
“This is UEFA’s fault for not communicating their rules on multi-club ownership clearly enough. It looks like they have moved the goalposts in terms of the deadline they set last season for the blind trust arrangement. Again, I understand the frustrations there, but if they were always going to change that particular rule, they have to do it at some point.
“What’s interesting – and this applies to Forest and Marinakis as well as Palace – is that, if you own two clubs in Europe, you’re effectively placing a ceiling on your ambitions for them both.
“Forest and Olympiacos will never be able to play in the Champions League together, which means Marinakis has effectively accidentally revealed that he doesn’t think they can be consistent challengers for that competition. Either that or he is relying on a rule change from UEFA, which I don’t think is likely.”
Marinakis needs to be careful over Textor relationship
The Forest owner is right to look after the club’s best interests, but he does need to be careful.
Forest are selling Matt Turner to Textor’s Lyon and previously, he’s helped Forest meet PSR by taking Orel Mangala and Moussa Niakhate for inflated fees.
Furthermore, Danilo is in talks with Lyon, and it’s probably the wrong time to be burning bridges with an owner who has helped Forest considerably in recent years.
Forest will hope to get this one resolved quickly so that plans can be put in place for the next campaign when it comes to transfers.