Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis is confident his team is more ‘balanced’ this season after gaining crucial Premier League experience last season.
Forest took their first win of the new season on Friday after beating Sheffield United 2-1 at the City Ground.
The multi-billionaire shipping and media magnate spoke to Mail Sport after the UEFA Super Cup held in Athens on Wednesday.
Marinakis also owns Greek giant Olympiacos and took time to sit down after Manchester City’s win over Sevilla to discuss Forests’ ambitions in the English top flight.
Forest signed 30 new players last summer in what was a massive overhaul of Steve Cooper’s squad as the manager sought to develop a side capable of competing in the Premier League.
Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis is determined to make the club an ‘established’ Premier League team
Forest picked up their first win of the season in a 2-1 victory over Sheffield United on Friday
This transfer window has seen the club take a new approach with more outgoing than incoming revenue so far and Marinakis is confident in how the side will come together.
“Yes, (things are more balanced) because everyone involved has a year of experience and of course we all make mistakes in the beginning,” he says.
“Premier League experience is very important and this club is a huge club, but they have been for a long time, exactly how old my son (Miltiadis) is since 1999, that it was not in the Premier League.
“This club with the popularity and supporters, previous performance in the Champions League must be as high as possible. For me it was a challenge and a team that I remember when I first came to boarding school in England did really well and outperformed Liverpool and a club that was very popular and loved.
A few years later I bought the club and I want it to be established in the Premier League. We have spent a lot on the training center, our stadium and have a building permit for our stadium and real estate development in the region.
Every year we improve and the dream is to see Nottingham Forest in the top 10 in the Premier League,” he added.
Surviving in England’s top flight is one thing, thriving in it is another and Marinakis recognizes the challenges ahead in achieving his goals but is determined to do so.
There is an understanding that building Forest will take time, last season they finished four points above the relegation zone in 16th, although the club’s owner believes there is a chance to improve this season.
“The goal this year is to perform better than last year. If you saw some results last year and at the end of the day our points and the difference to teams around us, two wins and the team would have been 12th or 13th.
Marinakis (right) believes his team from Forest is more ‘balanced’ this season
Forest are looking to build on a positive first season in the Premier League’s past campaign
“For the first year in the Premier League we have done well, we could have done better and we hope that this year when we also complete our transfer list we will have a much better team than last year.
“Obviously when the team starts to perform there’s no limit because it’s a big team and what you saw last year is that Nottingham Forest in a lot of the bigger games against opponents we did really well and with smaller opponents not like expected.
“We’ve lost some games we should never have lost and I’m optimistic, we’re behind our coach and some of the players who should improve this year.
You saw that with our striker Taiwo Awoniyi when he scored against Arsenal. He got the ball from the goalkeeper, ran really well with Anthony Elanga and it was very, very good,” he added.
But success is no easy feat and Marinakis fears that closing the gap to the bigger teams in the Premier League will be made more difficult by the huge transfer spending from other clubs in the division. in the form of Saudi Arabia.
The oil-rich country wants to turn the Saudi Pro League into a global powerhouse, while spending millions on players looking to monetize huge payouts in the Middle East.
Marinakis has experienced a period of transformation since buying the club
Neymar is the country’s summer signing after joining from PSG alongside Karim Benzema, Sadio Mane, Riyad Mahrez, Jordan Henderson and others, with Marinakis keeping an eye on how the situation develops.
“It’s getting harder and again this year we saw Saudi Arabia targeting players who aren’t 35 or 36, they’re young good players and the offers they get for their salary are five, six, seven times what’s out there. is. in the Premier League,” says Marinakis.
“You can imagine that there’s no way you can finish well with these kinds of differences, plus we also have Financial Fair Play that we have to be aware of, so that makes it much more difficult. Something that will be of great concern not only to us, but to all clubs,” he added.
Meanwhile, back in his homeland of Greece, the 56-year-old is determined to raise the profile of Greek football and make the country a hot spot for major sporting events.
The Saudi Pro League is trying to bring some of Europe’s top talent to the Middle East
Their Supercup delivery has received positive feedback from UEFA and Marinakis is determined to lead the charge in transforming Greek football, but acknowledges issues that have seen the country slide down UEFA’s coefficient rankings over the last 20 years .
At the turn of the millennium, Greece was sixth in the UEFA standings, which meant that the country would automatically receive three qualifications for the group stage of the Champions League. Years of ridicule have left the nation languishing in 19th place, with no side from Greece automatically qualifying for the Champions League group stage or any other European competition since 2021/22.
The Olympiacos owner now wants his home country to storm back up the UEFA rankings and is frustrated to see others, whom he describes as ‘people who have nothing to do with professional football’, wreak havoc in the federation’s ranks.
“The problem at the moment and it’s no secret in Greek football is the federation. We have a federation that cannot cope with the current challenges,’ he explains.
UEFA praised the host of the Supercup in Athens by the Marinaki’s on Wednesday night
“There are people involved who have nothing to do with professional football and this is a very big problem and this is also causing violence and various problems in Greek football that we who have invested heavily in players, infrastructure, stadiums, training grounds and are working a a lot to improve and promote the brand, it’s a problem.
“Two years ago there was an agreement between the Prime Minister and the President of UEFA and they signed a memorandum with guidelines for Greek football. Having said that, we need to have a professional refereeing organization and it was my proposal, as I am also the president of the Greek Super League, to copy the Premier League model with professional referees,” he added.
“It’s something that works really well in England and what we said is to copy exactly the same thing. Portugal did it successfully and you see how successful they are. You can see that Portugal is an example, because the money in the budget is also limited, but they are performing better.
“We have to do this for us and also have a professional for the committee that decides on the future of professional football. Instead, the committee has a minority vote and that makes no sense in any case.’