Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis has suggested Ukraine should cede land to Russia, just days after the club signed Ukraine footballer Oleksandr Zinchenko.
Earlier this week, Arsenal star Zinchenko moved on loan to Premier League rivals Forest on transfer deadline day.
Having fallen out of favour in north London, the 28-year-old will be hoping to get more playing time at the City Ground, but things have gotten off to a rocky start – and he hasn’t even kicked a ball yet.
To begin with, Zinchenko was excluded from Forest’s Europa League squad, meaning he cannot feature in their eight league-phase games, limiting his opportunities to play.
The left-back/midfielder is one of several summer signings omitted, including £37.5million arrival Omari Hutchinson, with Forest forced to name a smaller squad for Europe due to a lack of ‘club-trained’ players.
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But his situation at the club has become even more awkward thanks to some remarkable comments made by Marinakis at an economic summit in Greece on Thursday.
A clip of the Forest owner debating the Russia-Ukraine War with former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson went viral on social media, with Marinakis stating that Russia should ‘keep parts of Ukraine’, something Johnson likened to the appeasement of Adolf Hitler shortly before the Second World War.
The exchange between Boris Johnson and Evangelos Marinikas
Marinakis: ‘What I would prefer is for children to stop dying and let Russia keep some of this [Ukraine’s] territory and stop this war. That’s a fair compromise. Let’s stop the war.’
Johnson: ‘How much of Ukraine would you hand over? How much of Ukraine would be fair to hand over to the aggressor to stop the war? How much of Czechoslovakia would you have given to Hitler?’
Marinakis: ‘It is not the same.’
Johnson: ‘It is the same! It is exactly the same! It is identical! If we are weak now, we will pay for it later on.’
Zinchenko, a four-time Premier League champion with Manchester City, started for Ukraine as they lost 2-0 to France on Friday night and has captained his country on six occasions.
Marinakis completed his takeover of Forest in 2017 and they have since won promotion back to the Premier League and re-established themselves in the top-flight, qualifying for Europe last season.
The Greek businessman, who also owns Olympiacos, has been a figure of controversy however, having previously been accused of match-fixing, fraud and blackmail, allegations he has been cleared of.
In April, Marinakis stormed onto the pitch after Forest drew with rivals Leicester City to remonstrate with manager Nuno Espirito Santo, something Sky Sports commentator Gary Neville described on air as ‘disgraceful’.
The club later claimed that Marinakis had only gone to check on the condition of injured player Taiwo Awoniyi and Neville has been shockingly barred from the City Ground ever since.
Forest had originally qualified for the Conference League this season but were promoted to the more lucrative Europa League to replace FA Cup winners Crystal Palace.
Palace were controversially demoted for breaching UEFA’s multi-club ownership rules despite not actually being part of an MCO, unlike many other teams in the competition such as Forest.
Forest wrote a letter to UEFA about the issue during their investigation of Palace, the contents of which have been disputed, and Eagles chairman Steve Parish believes this directly played a role in their demotion, saying: ‘If there wasn’t someone who wanted to get in as a consequence, then there wouldn’t be a problem.’
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