Forest owner Marinakis banned for spitting towards officials

Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis has been given a five-match stadium ban for spitting on the floor as match officials walked past in the tunnel after a 1-0 defeat to Fulham in September.

Marinakis missed Forest’s first home win since April on Monday against Crystal Palace and will also not be permitted to attend matches against Leicester, West Ham, Newcastle and Arsenal.

The incident came after Fulham’s Raul Jimenez scored a controversial penalty, awarded after a lengthy VAR check.

Forest were further aggrieved when another VAR decision went in favour of Fulham as Calvin Bassey appeared to bring down Anthony Elanga inside the area but penalty appeals were waived away.

An independent regulatory commission’s findings released on Tuesday found that Marinakis’ behaviour constituted an “egregious display of disrespectful behaviour” that “fuels disrespect towards match officials.”

In his defence, the Greek businessman claimed the spitting incident was unintentional and caused by a hacking cough because he smokes two or three cigars a day.

Earlier this month, Forest were fined £750,000 ($976,000) for a social media post last season that the Football Association found attacked “the integrity of a match official on an unparallelled scale”

The club’s official social media feed  claimed the VAR official during a 2-0 defeat to Everton was a fan of relegation rivals Luton after Forest were denied three penalties.

Forest manager Nuno Espirito Santo and vice-captain Morgan Gibbs-White have also received bans after being sent off in a 2-2 draw at Brighton last month.

However, on the field they are off to a fine start to the season with just one defeat in their opening eight Premier League games.

A 1-0 win over Palace lifted Nuno’s men up to eighth in the table.