{"id":87045,"date":"2025-08-23T08:48:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T08:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/87045\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T08:48:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T08:48:07","slug":"tense-meeting-awaits-after-crystal-palaces-bitter-european-battle-with-forest-premier-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/87045\/","title":{"rendered":"Tense meeting awaits after Crystal Palace\u2019s bitter European battle with Forest | Premier League"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crystal Palace against Nottingham Forest isn\u2019t usually a Premier League fixture that would have the Metropolitan police on red alert. But after a summer spent at each other\u2019s throats at the court of arbitration for sport<\/a> as well as on social media over Uefa\u2019s decision to demote Palace from the Europa League<\/a> to the Conference League, to Forest\u2019s advantage, supporters of both clubs are preparing to come face-to-face on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cForest aren\u2019t our rivals \u2013 they\u2019re nothing to us,\u201d says the Palace fan Chris Waters. \u201cBut all of a sudden this game has a bitter edge to it.\u201d Sanad Attia, AKA Wolfie, who presents the Forest Fan TV YouTube channel, says: \u201cWe\u2019ve never really had any kind of issue with Palace \u2013 I was quite happy for them winning the FA Cup. But they have been wanting to blame everyone but themselves. And in particular, Forest and Evangelos Maranakis.\u201d<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen whether the Greek billionaire will be at Selhurst Park. Forest were accused by the Palace chairman, Steve Parish, of playing a crucial role in their demotion after the Midlands club raised concerns to Uefa in June about Palace potentially being in breach of multi-club ownership rules. As usual, Marinakis is expected to bring his own security if he does make the trip to south London, and Palace insist the Forest owner is welcome in the boardroom.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love to be a fly in that boardroom on Sunday if he walks in,\u201d says Waters. \u201cHe shouldn\u2019t not turn up to watch his team, but he\u2019s got to expect a hostile reception because effectively he has played a key part in taking away our right to play in a premier European competition.<\/p>\n

Crystal Palace say Evangelos Marinakis, the Nottingham Forest owner, is welcome in the boardroom on Sunday. Photograph: Richard Heathcote\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not belittling Forest, but isn\u2019t this about the smaller clubs standing up against the establishment? It feels just a bit like a betrayal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forest don\u2019t quite see things the same way. They point to the fact that John Textor, Palace\u2019s American part-owner at the time, was found by Uefa to have \u201cdecisive influence\u201d while also being the majority shareholder at the French club Lyon, who also qualified for the Europa League. Unlike Marinakis, Textor missed the opportunity to place his shares in a blind trust before the 1 March deadline and has since sold his stake to Woody Johnson.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month both clubs sent legal teams to Palace\u2019s appeal at Cas in Lausanne. The court found against the London club\u2019s claim they were unfairly treated compared to Forest and Lyon. \u201cThe most fascinating thing for me is the fans seem to have let Steve Parish get away with this for free,\u201d says Attia. \u201cYes, we profited from their mistake. But I would expect any Premier League<\/a> owner to want what\u2019s best for their club.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Forest manager, Nuno Esp\u00edrito Santo, revealed this week he had mentioned that to his Palace counterpart, Oliver Glasner, when they spoke recently, even if he also admitted<\/a> on Friday that his relationship with Marinakis \u201chas changed\u201d for the worse since their on-pitch altercation after May\u2019s draw with Leicester<\/a>. \u201cThe narrative that is being built is not the truth, we are not to blame,\u201d Nuno told BBC Nottingham. \u201cWe have sympathy for the fans of Palace, extreme sympathy for their players and coaching staff, especially Oliver \u2013 and I told him. But please, don\u2019t put Forest as the bad guy because we are not.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is estimated they could make up to \u00a320m from promotion to the Europa League, with Marinakis having answered his manager\u2019s request to sign new players this week by bringing in four \u2013 James McAtee, Omari Hutchinson and Arnaud Kalimuendo on permanent deals for around \u00a390m, and Douglas Luiz on loan from Juventus. By contrast, Glasner has been frustrated by Palace\u2019s inaction in the transfer market; they have spent the least of any club in Europe\u2019s top five leagues. They also agreed the sale of Eberechi Eze to Arsenal<\/a> on the eve of the first leg of their Conference League playoff against Fredrikstad<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, he appeared conciliatory towards Forest when asked if there will be an extra edge to the game. \u201cYes there can be,\u201d he said. \u201cBut you know Forest didn\u2019t make the verdict \u2013 it was made by Uefa and then Cas. I still think it\u2019s unfair because it\u2019s against the justice we are living in, in the world we are living in. This has nothing to do with Nottingham. They\u2019re very ambitious, and when you\u2019re seventh [last season] and adding all these players, this is what we have to face.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2018One thing we\u2019re unanimous on is what Maranakis has done for this club,\u201d says Sanad Attia AKA Wolfie. Photograph: Footy Network<\/p>\n

That\u2019s unlikely to calm things down in the stands, however. Against Fredrikstad in the Conference League on Thursday night, the Palace supporters\u2019 group the Holmesdale Fanatics introduced a new line to round off their favourite current song that describes Marinakis as a \u201cfat greedy bastard\u201d and also takes aim at Uefa and Textor. At Forest\u2019s victory over Brentford last weekend<\/a>, a new chant also referring to their owner\u2019s summer battle with Spurs to keep Morgan Gibbs-White rang around the City Ground. \u201cMarinakis, he hates the Tottenham, he hates the Palace, Forest are magic \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe disagree on a lot of things, but one thing we\u2019re unanimous on is what Maranakis has done for this club,\u201d says Attia. \u201cHe promised us when we got promoted, \u2018We\u2019re here to rewrite the proud history that Forest have had.\u2019 And he\u2019s proving to be a man of his word.\u201d<\/p>\n

To add more spice to Sunday\u2019s match, Palace have gone nine matches without a win against Forest in all competitions, a run that stretches back to 2011. Whatever the result, Waters expects the bitterness to linger. \u201cPalace fans don\u2019t forget things like this,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, we\u2019ll be looking out keenly for their European results. It\u2019s just a shame that it\u2019s just come to this \u2013 football should be kept out of the courtrooms, but two clubs have been dragged into it and quite at the behest of one of them. We suffered as a consequence and that hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crystal Palace against Nottingham Forest isn\u2019t usually a Premier League fixture that would have the Metropolitan police on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-87045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}