31-01-2024, 09:30 PM
(This post was last modified: 31-01-2024, 09:34 PM by Salvatore Matrecano.)
Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis has responded to Premier League chief executive Richard Masters’ description of the Reds and Everton as “small clubs”.
Masters used the term when answering a question about the two teams when he appeared before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in Parliament earlier this month. He had been asked whether big clubs are treated differently with regards Profitability and Sustainability rules, amid both Forest and the Toffees being charged with breaching the financial regulations.
Masters was subsequently asked to clarify his comment, and Marinakis has described it as “a bit careless”.
“I think it was not appropriate and I think it was a bit careless,” he said. “Nottingham Forest and Everton are very big clubs, and maybe are bigger than the ones that are considered to be big clubs today.
Of course we have extensive surveys that examine this, with supporters in the UK, that clearly indicate how big a club is and how big the support is. Here, in Nottingham, the region is about 2.2 million people. It’s huge. If we extend it a bit further, it’s five million.
“If we were able to build a new stadium and we had 50,000 to 60,000 capacity, you would have seen it full. We saw it in our previous cup match, where we sold 24,000 to 25,000 tickets to non-season ticket holders.
“If you add it up, it is 50,000 to 60,000 people that want to watch the team. It is not a small region, by any means.”
Marinakis was speaking as he oversaw a landmark conference at the City Ground aimed at tackling racism and gender inequality in European football. The event was hosted by Forest, the Weatherhead Center at Harvard University and the Lilian Thuram Foundation.
He added: “Big team and small team is maybe not an appropriate expression. When we say a big team, in your eyes it is a team that has a lot of support or that has achieved a lot of victories or a lot of trophies.
“But if you analyse it and you see who are these teams, they are teams with big crowds. On rare occasions you see a team that doesn’t have this solid supporter base that have maybe won a trophy. But the majority is where you see the power of your supporters in the ground. Even when you don’t play well, you have the support and it makes you feel stronger or motivates you. This is very important for our sport.
There are a lot of times where we say the supporters won the match. The atmosphere is very important.”
Masters used the term when answering a question about the two teams when he appeared before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in Parliament earlier this month. He had been asked whether big clubs are treated differently with regards Profitability and Sustainability rules, amid both Forest and the Toffees being charged with breaching the financial regulations.
Masters was subsequently asked to clarify his comment, and Marinakis has described it as “a bit careless”.
“I think it was not appropriate and I think it was a bit careless,” he said. “Nottingham Forest and Everton are very big clubs, and maybe are bigger than the ones that are considered to be big clubs today.
Of course we have extensive surveys that examine this, with supporters in the UK, that clearly indicate how big a club is and how big the support is. Here, in Nottingham, the region is about 2.2 million people. It’s huge. If we extend it a bit further, it’s five million.
“If we were able to build a new stadium and we had 50,000 to 60,000 capacity, you would have seen it full. We saw it in our previous cup match, where we sold 24,000 to 25,000 tickets to non-season ticket holders.
“If you add it up, it is 50,000 to 60,000 people that want to watch the team. It is not a small region, by any means.”
Marinakis was speaking as he oversaw a landmark conference at the City Ground aimed at tackling racism and gender inequality in European football. The event was hosted by Forest, the Weatherhead Center at Harvard University and the Lilian Thuram Foundation.
He added: “Big team and small team is maybe not an appropriate expression. When we say a big team, in your eyes it is a team that has a lot of support or that has achieved a lot of victories or a lot of trophies.
“But if you analyse it and you see who are these teams, they are teams with big crowds. On rare occasions you see a team that doesn’t have this solid supporter base that have maybe won a trophy. But the majority is where you see the power of your supporters in the ground. Even when you don’t play well, you have the support and it makes you feel stronger or motivates you. This is very important for our sport.
There are a lot of times where we say the supporters won the match. The atmosphere is very important.”