It seemed when Nottingham Forest appointed Dane Murphy as the club’s chief executive in 2021 that Ioannis Vrentzos would take a backseat at the City Ground.
After the club released the report from their PSR case, however, it would appear that he’s still very much got his fingers in more pies than some would care him to have at the club.
Vrentzos is named a number of times in the report – and it would see that one serious error that he made could have cost Forest far more than four points in the grand scheme of things.
Evangelos Marinakis must stop using Vrentzos at Forest
Well, some Forest fans will have had their eyes firmly opened when it comes to what Vrentzos is actually doing at the club. The report seemingly suggests that Marinakis has given him the lead on some transfer stuff.
That is a seriously worrying concept for Forest fans to contend with. Vrentzos was actively involved when the club were signing a number of duds as they moped around mid-table in the Championship.
Naturally, there will have been success stories from Forest’s recruitment in the second tier that Vrentzos – and Marinakis – will point towards. However, one day of sunshine doesn’t mean it’s summer!
The key piece of information here from the PSR report is that Vrentzos was the man tasked with selling Brennen Johnson, according to award-winning journalist Peter Blackburn.
Given that he scored eight Premier League goals last season, that shouldn’t have been difficult but the trusted lieutenant of Marinakis almost made a costly mistake.
It’s claimed that Atletico Madrid made a bid of 50 million euros for Johnson and Forest made a counteroffer of 65 million euros to the La Liga outfit. Negotiations went no further.
Instead, Forest chose to go over the latest PSR cycle and wait until the transfer deadline day to sell Johnson. Tottenham signed him for £47.5 million – an increase of just £5 million on the bid from Atletico.
Vrentzos can’t keep working for Forest
In our view, the fact that Vrentzos is still working at Forest in any capacity will be enough to deeply concern Forest fans. He doesn’t appear fit for purpose and the Reds are lucky the punishment was only four points.
It’s admirable that Forest chose to wait and try to get even more profit for Johnson. However, in knowing they were breaking the rules, it’s amazing that the club haven’t been hit harder.
One thing that this whole situation has to do is force home just how much better Forest need to be when it comes to recruitment.
The fact that Vrentzos is still getting involved with big deals is very worrying and his track record isn’t particularly good give how many average players Forest have signed under his tenure.
Marinakis has done wonders for Forest – but he’s still learning all of the time. One thing he must now do is cease Vrentzos’ involvement with the football club and get proper people in place to oversee the club’s recruitment.
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