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The Nottingham Forest owner, Evangelos Marinakis, will not have a controlling interest in the club next season before the club’s probable return to European football.
Marinakis, who also owns the Greek club Olympiakos, has placed his shares in a blind trust in order to comply with Uefa regulations on multiclub ownership, which state no individual is allowed to control two clubs that are competing in the same competition.
With his Greek side already qualified for next season’s Champions League, there would be a conflict of interest if Forest were able to follow them into Europe’s premier club competition.
Forest can move back up to third in the Premier League with four games remaining if they beat Brentford in Thursday’s game in hand at the City Ground.
The move is only temporary and is a commonly used practice, with Manchester United’s co-owner Ineos suspending its interest in Nice for this season. With Marinakis pausing his involvement, Sokratis Kominakis, the Forest co-owner, is returning to the club’s board.
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If Forest can qualify for the Champions League it would be one of the biggest success stories in the Premier League era. After back-to-back relegation fights after ending their 23-year exile from the top flight, Nuno Espírito Santo has the club challenging among the division’s elite this year.
With games against Brentford, Crystal Palace, Leicester, West Ham and Chelsea remaining, Forest are on the verge of returning to Europe for the first time since 1995-96, while Champions League qualification would put them back in the top level of European competition, in which they last competed during the 1980-81 season.
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