Kieran Maguire, football finance expert
It looks as if Marinakis is future-proofing things at Forest by effectively transferring control of the club to another company and to other people.
There will therefore be no conflict of interest should Forest be in the same competition and potentially with fixtures against Olympiakos.
We’ve seen in cases like Manchester United, Aston Villa, Brighton, Manchester City that they are part of multi-club ownership models and changes have had to be made.
With Forest’s excellent form this season, meaning they are potentially going to be featuring in the Champions League next year, the decision to make some legal changes to the control of both Forest and NF Football Investments makes a lot of sense.
By creating a blind trust it means that the day-to-day operations of Nottingham Forest will be determined by independent parties. Marinakis will not be involved in decision-making such as player recruitment, who is going to be the coach, the style of play and so on.
Multi-club ownership does bring complications first of all for Uefa and potentially longer term for Fifa as well, considering the expansion of the Club World Cup that we will see this season.
But it is also important, from the perspective of many shareholders, gambling companies, fans and broadcasters, that the competition, both from Uefa and Fifa’s perspective, is fair and honest.
