Evangelos Marinakis has just made ‘huge mistake’ at Nottingham Forest

Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis has dragged more unwanted attention onto himself by launching a defamation lawsuit against Crystal Palace. 

That is according to former Everton chief executive Keith Wyness, speaking exclusively to Football Insider, who believes that the Greek businessman has not “learned his lesson” from previous incidents. 

This comes after the news that Marinakis is suing Palace after a banner from their fans last season showed him holding a gun to Morgan Gibbs-White’s head, and appeared to accuse him of drug trafficking and match fixing, among several other accusations. 

Wyness believes that the Forest chief has made a “huge mistake” by filing the lawsuit, and is sure to have eyes trained on the City Ground again as a result. 

The controversial owner has been in the spotlight several times in recent years, not least for when he wrote to UEFA encouraging them to rescind Palace’s Europa League place last summer. 

Marinakis has not been found guilty of any of the accusations made by the Palace fans, and as a result, Wyness feels it was totally unnecessary for him to take the South London club to court.

Evangelos Marinakis not ‘focusing’ on Nottingham Forest

Everton’s former chief Wyness – who served as CEO at Goodison Park between 2004 and 2009 and now runs a football consultancy advising elite clubs – believes that Marinakis’ lawsuit will serve as an unwanted distraction for him over the coming months. 

The Scottish businessman made it clear that the owner should be fully focusing on trying to help his team prepare for the new campaign, but will now be settling personal grievances instead.

Speaking on the latest edition of Football Insider’s Inside Track podcast, Wyness explained why he is in no doubt that Marinakis has made a foolish move. 

“I think all he's done is drag more attention to it, which is always the problem. The fact is those accusations were already out there in the public domain, even though they were proved to be erroneous,” he said.

“I thought he'd be better, and turn a blind eye to it, shrug his shoulders, have a laugh and move on. Now, it’s easy for me to say, but I think that would have been a better service for him if he'd done that.

“I'm afraid it's just the wrong course of action. It's bringing legal action back into football. I thought Marinakis might have learnt his lesson, but it's very clear he hasn't. This is a huge mistake from him to have filed this lawsuit.

“It's only a distraction, and it's just not the right thing to do. He should be focusing on the club and trying to turn around the bad season they had last year.

“He just loves those headlines, and he loves sticking it to people, but there's something wrong with him somewhere, thinking this is the right course of action.”

Marinakis’ chances of winning legal battle revealed

Wyness told Football Insider earlier this week that Marinakis has very little chance of winning his legal battle with Palace on this occasion. 

He explained that the legal bar for defamation is “very high” in the UK, and that will undoubtedly be the case in this instance, given that the Palace fans didn’t bring up any accusations that weren’t already public.

Wyness outlined that Marinakis will need to prove that he and his business have been “harmed” by the banner, but he made it clear that will be “very hard” to prove. 

He also emphasised that any implications from the lawsuit will not affect the footballing side of either Forest or Palace.