Nottingham Forest expect to be cleared to compete in next season’s Champions League, with owner Evangelos Marinakis pausing his interest in the club to satisfy UEFA rules.
Marinakis is the owner of Greek giants Olympiacos, and both could qualify for Europe’s top club competition for 2025-26.
Forest can go third in the Premier League if they beat Brentford on Thursday, while Olympiacos are virtually certain to claim a spot in next season’s competition. And with the top five in the Premier League also qualifying automatically, Forest can take a significant step towards achieving that aim.
Under UEFA rules, two clubs under identical ownership cannot enter the same European competition unless certain requirements are met.
UEFA would permit both clubs to play in the Champions League as long as control of one of them was transferred temporarily to a third party, known as a blind trust.
This blind trust would then have decision-making responsibility for the relevant period.
A series of documents released by Companies House on Wednesday revealed boardroom reshuffle Forest have undertaken.
Sokratis Kominakis, a long-term associate of Marinakis who nevertheless stepped down from the board last year, has been reappointed as a director.
Three new directors - Matthew Cain, Tim Osborne and Matthew Shayle - have also been added to the board.
Osborne is a senior partner of law firm Wiggin Osborne Fullerlove, of which Cain and Shayle are partners.
According to its website, Wiggin Osborne Fullerlove ‘is a specialist international private client law firm providing bespoke legal services to high net worth clients.’