Forest owner Marinakis promises investment for Premier League return

Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis said the club will get the investment it needs to recruit top players after they sealed their return to the Premier League by beating Huddersfield Town in the Championship playoff final at Wembley.

Forest were relegated from the top flight in 1999 and they go up to England’s top flight with Bournemouth and Fulham, who won automatic promotion.

Shipowner Marinakis, who also owns Greek club Olympiakos, took over the twice former European Champions in 2017.

“It’s a magical night, not only for me but for the thousands and even millions of supporters within the United Kingdom and all over the world,” Marinakis told Sky Sports on Sunday.

“As I said nearly five years ago, we have to bring Nottingham Forest back where it belongs. Now we want more. Now we’re back in the Premier League, so we want to be as high as possible.

“We need to give all the ammunition to the team with good players.”

Forest head coach Steve Cooper, who took charge of the club in September last year when they were bottom of the Championship table, hailed his side’s “sense of belief”.

“Every time we’ve had an average performance or a loss we’ve recovered,” Cooper told reporters. “There is only once we’ve lost two games on the run and ironically what that was against Huddersfield but we bounced back.

“It’s a magical football club and we’ve just reminded the world of that.”

Forest, who had beaten Sheffield United to reach the playoff final, were English champions in 1978 under Brian Clough and went on to win the European Cup in 1979 and 1980.