Evangelos Marinakis was filmed appearing to have a heated altercation in the stands at the Euroleague Basketball final in Athens on Sunday, a day that also ended Nottingham Forest's Premier League season with a 1-1 draw against Bournemouth. The Forest owner, who has led the club since 2017, was at the game to watch Olympiakos beat Real Madrid 92-85.
Footage from the final appears to show Marinakis wearing a ripped shirt and arguing while security personnel and a barrier separated him from Grigoris Dimitriadis, the nephew of and former close adviser to Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Dimitriadis resigned as general secretary of Mitsotakis' office in 2022 over a phone spyware scandal.
The scene landed on the same day Forest secured a 16th-placed finish after drawing 1-1 with Bournemouth. The result closed a season in which Marinakis oversaw three managers — Nuno Espirito Santo, Ange Postecoglou and Sean Dyche — before Vitor Pereira ultimately steered the club to Premier League safety. Forest also reached the semi-finals of the Europa League before going out 4-1 on aggregate to Aston Villa.
Marinakis' public profile in English football has long been marked by controversy. In 2024, he was found guilty of improper conduct and handed a five-game stadium ban for spitting on the floor as match officials walked past after Forest's 1-0 Premier League defeat by Fulham. Three months later, he was central to a Football Association criticism described as an attack on the integrity of a match official on an unparalleled scale, after Forest's official X account called Stuart Attwell's integrity into question and the club were fined £750,000 over a post about three penalty decisions in a defeat at Everton.
That history gives the Athens footage added weight, because it shows a club owner whose temper has already brought sanctions in English football back in another confrontation in plain view. Nottingham Forest now move into the close season with the ownership's conduct again in the frame, even as the football side has already been forced to reset after a chaotic campaign and a narrow survival fight.
