Evangelos Marinakis has been accused of drug trafficking and Greek Super League strife has enveloped his other club, Olympiakos

Greek game in crisis and Nottingham Forest’s Marinakis is at the heart of it

In 2012, an ageing, nondescript tanker was renamed Noor 1 and promptly became a so-called ghost ship, its routes no longer logged. After it was intercepted off the Greek coast in 2014 it was claimed that more than two tonnes of heroin and 18 tonnes of illegal fuel had been smuggled on it.

There has long been speculation linking Evangelos Marinakis – one of Greece’s most powerful men, and owner of Olympiakos and Nottingham Forest – to that ship and on Friday the Greek public prosecutor, having conducted a preliminary investigation into allegations of drug trafficking made against him, has referred those allegations to an investigating judge.

Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis accused of drug trafficking Read more

The accusations – which Marinakis strongly rejects – are the latest development in a remarkable season, signifying a wider struggle in Greek football and beyond. In 2015, he was acquitted of complicity in a match-fixing network across seven countries. The magnate, who bought Forest in a £50m takeover, attributed those charges to jealous critics bent on blighting his Greek team’s winning streak. “Of course I cannot stop our opponents talking or bad‑mouthing,” he said.

Marinakis has a Pavarotti-like heft to match his growing power in football, business and politics. But now he is at odds with the government and rivals scent blood.

The 50-year-old shipping magnate and media tycoon was born in Piraeus, a largely working‑class city, known for its vast port and being home to Olympiakos, Greece’s most successful, best‑supported club.

Fabulously wealthy ship owners do not tend to be popular in crisis-hit Greece and few people had heard of Marinakis before buying the club in 2010. He is now one of Greece’s best-known figures.

Thanos Sarris, editor-in-chief of sports website Gazzetta says the big four – AEK Athens, Olympiakos, Panathinaikos, and Paok Thessaloniki – usually come with an army of support for successful owners, who can harness their fanaticism to support causes beyond the sport . “Here, most of the time, it is not about football but other things: about politics, about the backstage,” he adds.

Olympiakos have won the Greek Super League every season under Marinakis’s ownership. In 2014, several figures linked to the club leveraged their popularity to take control of Piraeus municipality. Marinakis became a councillor and sidekick Yiannis Moralis, Olympiakos’s vice‑president, became mayor under the independent ticket “Piraeus, Winner”. “The great reversal starts from this port,” bellowed Marinakis during campaign rallies full of football rhetoric and Olympiakos flags.

This is what Tasos Alevras, who made the documentary What Politica about Olympiakos, refers to as the “footballisation of politics”. Football and politics were always linked in Greece, says Alevras, but it was subtler: “Nowadays it’s very obvious, there is no separation.” Christos Charalampopoulos, a football journalist and academic, says it is likely Marinakis’s main aim is to boost his business interests and wield influence over politics: “He does not want to be a politician – he wants to be the one who says who is going to be the next leader.”

Play Video 0:43 PAOK Salonika owner Ivan Savvidis invades pitch with a gun – video

Two decades of success have endowed Olympiakos with a large Champions League dividend, while most Greek clubs are mired in financial strife. But allegations of widespread corruption and match-fixing are rife and in the past two decades there has been a common belief among rival fans that Olympiakos were favoured by authorities – from the stadium secured from the 2004 Olympic bid to the perception that the football federation was long under its sway.

Marinakis was named as a key suspect in the 2011 Koriopolis scandal, which implicated him in masterminding disciplinary penalties, refereeing decisions, and results. Marinakis vehemently denies all charges, but the scandal has dogged him since.

In June 2015, he was banned from all football activity after being investigated for match-fixing, fraud, extortion, running a criminal organisation and involvement in blowing up a bakery owned by a referee. But by early 2017 all the charges had been dropped and he had been acquitted of match fixing. In May, Marinakis passed the Football League’s fit and proper persons test and completed his Forest takeover.

The owners of Greece’s other big three clubs are not only rivals in football, but men with huge portfolios that include shipping companies, who also own or influence media outlets, and have strong connections to politicians.

Paok’s Greek-Russian owner, Ivan Savvidis, has invested heavily and turned it into a title contender, earning devotion while steadily buying up swathes of real estate, resorts, media outlets and industrial companies in the city.

Savvidis is rumoured to be close to the Syriza government while Marinakis has strong personal connections to the opposition centre-right New Democracy party and has railed against Syriza. There are claims that a government- and Fifa-directed drive for reform has led to the election of a Greek football federation president supported by Paok’s owner. Fifa intervened in the federation in October 2016 and effectively ran it through a “normalisation committee” until last summer’s elections for a new president and executive board.

Georgios Antonopoulos, a criminologist at Teesside University, believes the reforms have produced a more competitive season. “The Syriza government does not provide any support to [Olympiakos] in the same way another government would,” he says.

But many Olympiakos fans feel as if they are the victims of a conspiracy. “In the last election I voted for Syriza, but now it has turned against Olympiakos I will never vote for them again,” said one, Maniatis Lambros.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A poster featuring a portrait of Evangelos Marinakis when he ran to become a councillor in Piraeus. Photograph: Yorgos Karahalis/Reuters

In November, two days after it was announced Marinakis again faced further accusations, a banner at an Olympiakos basketball match addressed Syriza: “Olympiakos was, is and will be forever the state.”

Olympiakos’s press office said neither Marinakis nor Moralis were available for an interview: “The situation in Greek football is far too tense right now.” With the stakes so high for owners it is no wonder Greek football is so combustible.

PAOK owner who stormed pitch with gun ordered to testify Read more

A crunch match between Paok and Olympiakos in February was abandoned before kick-off after Olympiakos’s coach, Óscar García, was struck by a cashier roll thrown from the stands. García was hospitalised while Paok accused him of faking injuries.

This month’s match between Paok and AEK was abandoned after Savvidis stormed on the pitch while armed with a holstered gun and attempted to confront the referee, who had disallowed his team a late goal.

The government responded by suspending the Super League indefinitely. If this season is resumed, Paok will likely face a hefty points deduction – as could AEK for walking off – making a previously unlikely eighth consecutive Olympiakos league title under Marinakis a distinct possibility.

While this season could be settled in the courts so too could Marinakis’s fate. Although 58 people were sentenced for their involvement in the Koriopolis scandal this month, there was a widespread sense Marinakis was too powerful to be brought down, but the Noor 1 accusations have ramped up the pressure. Marinakis has released a defiant statement of denial, claiming the latest accusations are politically motivated.

Five people were sentenced to life imprisonment over Noor 1 in 2016. But the Greek legal process is often convoluted, lengthy and fraught. “The sure thing is that [Marinakis] is in a war with the government now,” said Alevras, speaking before the latest accusations. “But he has all the support from the anti-government political parties.”

• This article was edited on 28 March to remove references to charges. Under Greek criminal procedure, for serious offences, before a case can be referred to trial, a preliminary investigation is followed by a main investigation, conducted by an investigating judge. After that investigation has concluded, the judge reports their conclusion to the public prosecutor, who recommends either referral to trial or acquittal to a separate judicial body (the Judicial Council). The Judicial Council makes the final decision as to whether to refer a case for trial or acquit. Nottingham Forest issued the following letter on 28 March.