Marinakis 'has big dreams' for Forest & 'club will stay up'

Evangelos Marinakis bought Forest in May 2017

Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis is "confident" the club will avoid relegation this season and says he has "big dreams" for the future.

Forest are 17th in the Premier League, three points above the relegation zone with two games left to play.

On Tuesday, the club lost their appeal against a four-point punishment for breaching Premier League profit and sustainability rules (PSR).

"You will see great things with Forest," Marinakis told BBC Sport.

Marinakis, who is also the owner of Olympiakos, was speaking after the Greek side beat Aston Villa to reach the Europa Conference League final on Thursday.

Olympiakos' win against Villa meant they became the first Greek side to reach a European final since Panathinaikos in 1971.

Marinakis said: "It was a very big achievement for our players, our manager and fantastic crowd, they all supported. There’s something magic in this stadium in Piraeus, you have these positive vibes that help you and you feel a winner from the very beginning."

Marinakis on Forest ambitions and referee frustrations

"I am confident we will stay up and I’m confident that you will see in years to come where Forest will be," the 56-year-old said.

"It’s a great team, it inspires us and we want to do more and you will see in the years to come that we have big dreams for Forest."

In March, Forest were docked four points after an independent commission found their losses to 2022-23 breached the threshold of £61m by £34.5m.

Premier League clubs can lose £105m over three seasons - £35m per campaign - but Forest's maximum loss was only permitted to be £61m because they spent two years of the assessment period in the Championship.

"It is stressful because of what has been happening since the beginning of the year with some decisions and points deduction," Marinakis said.

Forest's appeal was rejected just days after the club were charged with misconduct by Football Association over a social media post that questioned the integrity of the video assistant referee (VAR) following a 2-0 defeat at Everton.

"It's not fair what has happened so far," said Marinakis.

"Referee decisions have cost us points and this is something that has been repeated and repeated and what we expect for the Premier League and referees is to correct these mistakes.

"It’s a pity as we have a great appetite for the club and I never give up."

Nuno Espirito Santo's side had three penalty claims rejected against Everton and the club claimed they told referees body the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) that the game's VAR Stuart Attwell was allegedly a fan of relegation rivals Luton.

"It was very frustrating to see three repeated mistakes that took place from the same [Everton] player. Also we had informed the Premier League chairman that... all referees have a preference which team they support," Marinakis added.

"Unfortunately nothing happened and they didn’t make any change and then we saw what we saw."