Marinakis is just a passionate Greek owner – I knew one who carried a gun ...Middle East

Nikos Dabizas pauses then breaks out in a laugh.

“Listen, he says, the owner of one of my first clubs would walk around in a suit, with a gun stashed down the back of his pants. That was obviously a long time ago but what we’re seeing here is the culture of Greek football clashing with the culture of English football.”

The former centre-back is well known to football supporters in both countries.

Dabizas spent seven years in English football with Newcastle and Leicester, but the Greek international first made his name at Olympiakos, the club owned by Evangelos Marinakis, who has been front and back-page news since his Nottingham Forest side drew 2-2 with the Foxes on Sunday.

Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis went on the pitch at full-time to remonstrate with Nuno Espirito Santo after the 2-2 draw against Leicester pic.twitter.com/CdAMHbhTwe

— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) May 11, 2025

Marinakis’s links with Olympiakos go back far, further than his association with Nottingham Forest. Piraeus, the port of Athens, is where Marinakis was born and raised. It’s where he also made his name, in an environment which, to most involved in English football, would resemble the wild west.

“In Greece, you’ll see the owner in the dressing room all the time – almost as much as the manager,” Dabizas tells The i Paper.

“Sometimes they would be there telling you about the bonus you will get if you win the match, and then after the game, they will be in there shouting at the players because you’ve lost and they’ve saved themselves some money.

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“We are more emotional. It’s in our character, we’re passionate as a nation. Maybe that can come across as being out of order, at times but most of the time, it’s pure – it’s the love of the game, it’s the passion. Of course, if you can manage your emotions then that’s the best thing, but football is an emotional game.

“Marinakis isn’t trying to insult anyone he just wants to be a success.”

Marinakis is a man who wears his heart on his sleeve, and there will be plenty of supporters of other clubs who would love to see their owner show the same kind of passion that he does – both in front of the cameras and away from them.

In fact, some supporters would just like to see their owners attend the odd match.

“He’s the opposite of some owners in the Premier League,” Dabizas says. “For some it’s completely business. Marinakis is investing money, of course he is, but he’s also investing his personality and his emotions.

“Maybe the Glazers are only caring about how the books look at the end of the season, but for Marinakis, he wants to have success. He’s very wealthy and he’s investing in the football club to make money, but he wants success more than anything.

“Sometimes he can’t manage his emotions, but you can’t accuse him of just being someone who wants to make money out of the football club.”

Despite the white-hot atmosphere at the City Ground at times this season, Marinakis’s attitude is much more in keeping with that of the Ultras who pile into the Karaiskakis Stadium for Olympiakos’s home matches than the occupants of the Trent End.

But which would he view as his greatest achievement: Olympiakos’s Europa Conference League final victory over Fiorentina in Athens last season, or Nottingham Forest sealing a place in the Champions League for the first time since 1980-81?

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“Making it to the Champions League would be incredible, but winning that European final with Olympiakos is something very, very special,” Dabizas says. “That’s history.

“We’re not a big nation, we’re not England with the Premier League. But what Marinakis will want to do is make sure that qualifying for Europe isn’t a flash – here one minute and then gone.

“The biggest achievement, for me, would be establishing Nottingham Forest in the top six in English football for a long time to come.

“Nottingham Forest is a club that a lot of Greek people love because of the days of (Brian) Clough. Now you have a lot of Olympiakos supporters following them too.”

Whatever happens in the remainder of this season, the shipping magnate appears to be in it for the long haul.

Strap yourselves in.

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