Simon Stone, chief football news reporter
The established ways round Uefa’s multi-club ownership rules are to either reduce a stake in one of them — as Brighton owner Tony Bloom did with his Belgian outfit Union-Saint Gilloise when they found themselves in the Europa League with Brighton — or put one of them into a ‘blind trust’ so an individual cannot exert influence over two clubs, as happened with Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the potential conflict between Manchester United and French club Nice.
Yet Ratcliffe subsequently complained at the additional ruling, which prevented players being transferred from one club to another as he wanted United to sign central defender Jean-Clair Todibo, who joined West Ham on loan instead.
Uefa will need to assess exactly what Marinakis has done before Forest are cleared to play in European competition.
Last year it was 8 July before United and Nice, as well as Manchester City and Girona, were ushered through — and it is clearly possible Olympiakos and Nottingham Forest will not end up in the same European competition.
But with Olympiakos starting out in the second qualifying round of the Champions League on 22 July and the potential for clubs to drop out of that competition into the Europa League before the actual tournament begins in September, the ruling has to be made a long time ahead of knowing whether Forest and Olympiakos could meet or not.
