Rio Ave v Sporting CP
Rio Ave v Sporting CP
August 30th, 2026
Estádio dos Arcos
Matchday 4
The warm up
It's May 11th, 2025 and at the Estádio dos Arcos, Vila do Conde home of Rio Ave F.C. there's an interested onlooker from behind the glass window of one of the stadium's executive boxes clutching a cigar in one of his hands. If the man had been impressed by the opening goal from Brazilian Diogo Bezerra to put Ave 1-0 up against Sporting CP then the TV cameras weren't focused on him to show it. However in the 42nd minute they did pan to him moments after Sporting had turned the game around to now lead 2-1 and we watched as he gave a dismissive wave of his free hand, the other still clutching firmly onto one of his lit cigars. The whole scene had the feel of a Roman Emperor watching on from a lofted position and clearly he was less than entertained by what he'd just witnessed. Eventually Ave despite taking a twelfth minute lead would lose the game against Sporting CP 4-1 and worse still for them finish with just nine men. Their players grateful that this wasn't really Rome back in the days of Gladiators where they could have lost their lives, although you imagine they'd still all be keen to avoid the modern day equivalent of the Emperor after the game if they could. That man watching on was the Greek billionaire Evangelos Marinakis, owner of Rio Ave, Premier League Nottingham Forest and Olympiacos in Greece.
From all appearances, Marinakis is not a man you want to get on the wrong side of, especially if your pay cheque is dependent on him at the end of the month. Ask Nuno Espírito Santos, Ange Postecoglu, Sean Dyche and Vítor Pereira who all in the space of one year were replaced as the mister of Nottingham Forest as they battled to avoid the drop to the Championship. Nuno Espírito Santos had started the season in charge off the back of leading the club into Europe from its highest top flight finish in decades but the pair had a disagreement so he was out the door quick sharp, his successes quickly forgotten. Woe betide anyone that falls on the wrong side of the Greek billionaire.
Marinakis isn't just wealthy, he's seriously wealthy. Forbes estimate he and his families wealth lies somewhere between $5 and $7 billion. Regular readers and anyone who knows about Portuguese football in general will all be familiar with talk of Os Três Grandes, Portugal's largest clubs, namely Benfica, Porto and Sporting CP. They all have one thing in common though in that they're member owned. Through their legal structure as a SAD they can attract foreign investments but none are backed by the wealth of billionaire owners. Their income is generated by commercial income from membership fees, gate receipts and shirt sales, from individual TV rights, the income from appearing in European competitions, from player sales and the like.
If you asked the question of who was Portugal's richest club by virtue of the wealth of their investors then it surely has to be Sporting Braga who are part owned by the Qatar Sports Investment fund who also own the current European Champions PSG. At some point should Braga finish in a Champions League place then that investment would become a problem because the chances that PSG won't have also qualified for the same competition are pretty slim and remote. Something the Portuguese media seemed to overlook entirely when there was a chance that Braga might win last season's Europa League thus automatically qualifying for this season's Champions League. In the end it didn't happen so we're still left guessing what would happen but it would mean their shares either having had to have been put into a blind trust or sold before a cut off point which ironically would have been way before the outcome of the tournament would have been known. It's highly probable I think that had Braga won they wouldn't have been allowed to take their place in the Champions League although I can't say that for definite and not for the first time I'm veering off topic so we'll leave that one unanswered for another time.
Because Evangelos Marinakis owns Rio Ave, by association of ownership wealth it makes them actually one of the richest clubs in Portugal. However it doesn't make them the wealthiest, far from it in fact. Idan Ofer which is a real person and not a line from the Simpsons cartoon where Bart prank calls Moes Tavern, is reported to be worth in the region of $30 billion. He owns 85% of Famalicão. Naseef Sawaris holds what's described as a strategic 29% of Sporting's Matchday 2 opponents Vitória SC. He's worth a reputed $9 billion.
The exact wealth of the US Platek family isn't known but they hold an investment stake in Casa Pia, have full ownership of Spezia in Italy and Danish club SønderjsykE Fodbold. MSP Sports Capital holds an investment in Estoril but again the value of the fund isn't reported however they brought a 33% stake in McClaren F1 for £185m in 2020 and exited the deal in an undisclosed buyout that now values the racing team at around $5 billion. Whatever they were paid for their shares it's fair to suggest that they made several times their initial investment back. So Evangelos Marinakis might not be the richest owner in Portuguese football, but in terms of individual wealth he's certainly close to the top of the list. He's also not the wealthiest Greek in the world but taking into account he and his families wealth they sit third on the list behind Vicky Safra and family, net worth $27.1 billion and Maris Angelicoussos, net worth $7.5 billion. Now Safra and her family members inherited their wealth from their late father who was a banker. For virtually every other Greek billionaire on the list, and there are a few, their primary business interest is listed as shipping. So there's a business lesson for anyone wanted to get rich - buy yourself some fuck off great container ships and start hauling goods around the world. Which also provides us with the perfect segue into just some of the accusations that have dogged Evangelos Marinakis over the years.
Statistically speaking if you're reading this there's a large chance that you've also read the summer series on the story of the Alcochete attacks in which we dedicated one of the posts to the raids carried out on the Juve Leo Casinha HQ based under one of the stands of Sporting's home the Estádio José Alvalade whilst they were playing Chaves. Quite frankly I've read and written enough about Alcochete now to not want to see it mentioned for at least a decade so the brief synopsis of the reasons for the raid is that the Portuguese authorities believe that free tickets given by Sporting to members of the Juve Leo were being used to fund an illicit drug trafficking operation. Dont worry if you've not read it you can check it out after you've finished this post. Long story short the raids did actually turn up class A drugs but by my maths it was just shy of the equivalent of four teaspoons worth of cocaine. Oh and I think there was an additional 3g weight of hashish. So all in less than 20g worth of both drugs found combined on the premises. The drugs case was eventually dismissed albeit Nuno Mendes, leader of the Juve Leo at the time remained on remand on the charges of trafficking despite no evidence of the cocaine found having been his. In March of 2018, two months before the attacks on Alcochete ironically enough, Marinakis also found himself being accused of similar charges. Alongside three of his associates they stood accused of financing and storing narcotic substances, setting up a criminal organisation and of transporting, trafficking and selling narcotic substances. These accusations followed a three year investigation into a tanker called the Noor 1 that had been intercepted in the port of Piraeus in 2014. Amongst its cargo it was found to be carrying 2.1 tonnes of heroin. I bet the lead prosecutor Cândida Vilar wished she'd been born Greek. Criminal convictions followed in 2016 and claims against Marinakis focused on bank transfers that raised suspicions of the authorities. In short the claims being that the monies paid were used to finance the vessel.
You might also remember during the summer we mentioned Operação Cashbal (Operation Cashball) which looked into accusations that Sporting SAD had been match fixing, albeit that was in handball matches and not football. In another case of one upmanship Marinakis had already had that same set of accusations labelled at him in 2015. He was acquitted of all charges in relation to the case which spread its influence across games in seven different countries.
Even more accusations can be found against Marinakis, someone clearly wants some mud to stick to his plain white T shirts. He and Olympiacos vice president Kostas Karapapas had criminal charges filed against them as part of a murder investigation of the death of police officer Giorgos Lyngeridis in December 2023. Charges ranged from financing a criminal organisation to inciting sports related violence. Those trials began in November of 2025. A 20 year old Olympiacos fan was convicted of manslaughter and received a life sentence for the death of the officer.
In separate investigations dozens of fans of Olympiacos have been charged with setting up a gang, extorting street vendors, possessing weapons and orchestrating assaults. Gate 7, the teams official fan club condemned the violence and attacks that took place at a women's volleyball match between Olympiacos and Panathinaikos where the police officer lost his life adding it has never invited violence.
In December 2024 Greek Police dismantled a gang that were importing cocaine and cannabis from Spain which allegedly included members of another Greek side AEK Athens. In 2020-2021 alone they're reported to have imported 1.4 tonnes of cannabis and 30kg of cocaine. Violence and criminal activities are not solely associated with Marinakis' Olympiacos. Whether the association with Greek football sides is merely heresy or not they do put into the context the aforementioned accusations that were made against the Juve Leo and hierarchy of Sporting CP as to how small fry and ridiculous those claims actually were at the time.
In May 2026 it was reported that Marinakis was seeking damages of between £1 and £5m in a high court libel case against the Chair of rival Greek side Aris Thessaloniki, one Eirini Karypidou. He is also suing Israeli political consultant Ari Harlow and his company. The basic premise being that Marinakis had a smear campaign aimed at his reputation which saw defamatory allegations published on social media and online.
Maybe he's only ever seen in white T shirts because he had literally gotten all the others and never wanted to see them again and thus appear in the eyes of authorities as being whiter than white? Clearly I've no wish to be sued so I'll make it abundantly clear that no charges against Evangelos Marinakis have ever been proven and confirm my opinion that he Greek is merely a fat cunt and a very rich one at that.
So for all his wealth the question has to be asked why he owns Rio Ave in Portugal? Because he's not pumping millions of Euros of investment into the club chasing a position in Europe or winning titles. In fact last season they finished 12th just six points above the relegation play offs place and we're probably extremely fortunate that there were a lot of worse teams in Portugal than them as they failed to pick up a single win in their last five games and between January 17th and February 22nd they lost six straight games, a run that was ended on March 1st with a 0-0 draw at home to Famalicão. One point from a possible twenty one on offer is clearly relegation form. You imagine Marinakis was more concerned with the thought of Nottingham Forest losing the millions from Premier League TV money than he was of his Portuguese minnows. He could at least afford the shortfall if Rio Ave went down to Liga 2 easily enough.
There's a level of prestige that comes with a Premier League club being successful on the field. There's no catchet to be found if Rio Ave were to shock the Portuguese footballing landscape and win the Liga outside of Portugal itself. The Portuguese league, like every other European division has spending controls in place and the gap between the clubs in 5th to 18th is so vast that it would take staggering amounts of money to shift the balance of power away from Benfica, Porto and Sporting. Braga occassionally find themselves amongst the top 3 places when one of those sides has an off season and would be best placed to mount a challenge but even with QSI as investors they remain sensible with their ambitions. So we can quickly dismiss any notion of wanting to take Ave to the top of the Portuguese footballing mountain.
AS a side bar - In Portuguese football clubs are required to conduct four annual salary audits with regularly defined sanctions if the requirements are not met. Under Law No. 39/2023 all clubs participating in professional competitions must either constitute a sports company (sociedade desportiva) or hold a participation in one. The dual structure model distinguishes between the parent sports association which retains it's non-profit and member based nature and the sports company which carries out the clubs professional and commercial activities. The parent club is required to maintain a minimum shareholding of 5% in the companies capital and must exercise effective influence over the definition of sporting strategy. Sports companies may take one of the corporate forms recognised by Portuguese law. The most common of these is the public limited company (Sociedade Anónima Desportiva - SAD). So if you were wondering why for example Idan Ofer only holds an 85% stake rather than 100% ownership, there's your answer. It's simply not permitted.
There are no restrictions on foreign ownership of Portuguese sport companies. Foreign individuals and corporate entities may freely acquire shares or controlling interests subject to - compliance with national corporate, tax, and anti-money laundering legislation. Where an investor already controls or holds a significant interest in another sports company, either domestically or abroad, the acquisition is subject to prior assessment to prevent conflicts of interest and to comply with multi-club ownership restrictions set out in UEFA and FIFA regulations. So we know at least there are some hurdles to purchasing a Portuguese club when owners already own other clubs such as Forest and Olympicos in the case of Marinakis.
Each company must have at least a board of directors, a supervisory body and an external auditor. Audited annual financial statements are required to be submitted. I add that line in to again note that Marinakis despite having the controlling interest still has to listen to the clubs wishes. He may well fancy putting more money in, but those on the board would righfully be wary of left holding the baby if the Greek suddenly decided he no longer wanted to invest in the club and left them with massive debts and no short to long term way or financing them. We've already highlighted the financial plight of Estrela in our matchday 1 post and we're not long from seeing Boavista go to the wall, one of just five clubs to have ever won the Portuguese top flight league title.
I would suggest the reasons for buying Olympiacos and Nottingham Forest are a lot more obvious than the purchase of Rio Ave unless overtime I missed that the Portuguese club was a sleeping giant of the domestic game. The Greek side are clearly the club he supported as a boy (well one assumes so anyway), investing into Nottingham Forest was done with the aim of reaching the Premier League and the associated payday that would bring if he achieved it. So why purchase Rio Ave in 2023? Note he had been owner of Olympiacos since 2010 and Forsest from 2017 onwards.
Now my natural inclination as to why Marinakis would want a Portuguese club amongst his stable was because of the Brazilian player market. If you were to take a cursory look into why so many Brazilian players move to Portugal the standard response is a shared language and culture. The overlooked answer is more obvious and important, Brazilians benefit from special immigration frameworks to work in Portugal. Primarily the CPLP Mobility Agreement and the historic Equality Statute. So you can get players the requisite work permits easier, their families can move to the country easier and for Portuguese clubs themselves you can buy players at a cheaper rate, in fact in a lot of cases players come on free transfers. If you're a Brazilian club losing a player on a free transfer that doesn't seem like a good deal on paper. But consider a player's selling on clause within the contract, because the ultimate goal will be to sell the player on to the European market and turn a tidy profit. If you're a Premier League club your access to talented youngsters in Brazil is harder because of immigration laws into the United Kingdom. A Premier League club may well want to do business direct with a club in Brazil for an up and coming youngster but being able to get a visa stops them from being able to do so. So if the player instead moves to Portugal which is part of the EU using the special legal framework and their career takes off, their pathway to their next club has opened up. Even if a club has a basic sell on clause of 10%, to help make more money, the chances are they'd also be entitled to the complete 5% parity payment due on all transfers for initial player development. At some point their money comes from the future profits. 10% is probably really low by the way. We know as an example that Geny Catamo’s previous club kept 90% of his playing contract. So then you have the scope for clubs to buy percentages of a players contract somewhere down the line. There's always some angle to make the deal work financially for all parties involved.
Somewhere in the back of my mind was the name of Botafogo connected with Marinakis which was brought back to the forefront when looking at their summer signings. Incoming - Samuel - Free transfer from … well of course Botafogo. Was there a thread to be pulled at? Stupid question, so let's pull at it. Incoming transfers to Nottingham Forest from Botafogo - Igor Jesus on a 4 year deal, Jair Cunha on a five year deal, Cuiabano on a four year deal. €12m quoted for Victor, either £10m or £11.5m for Jesus and no fee quoted for the third player. Outgoing from Forest to Botofogo - Danilo for €25m. All deals done between July and September of last year. Just two clubs conducting business nothing to see here. Until John Textor the Botafogo owner opened his mouth and suggested he'd colluded with Marinakis to fix transfer fees, something he quickly rolled back on and denied. Unsurprisingly Nottingham Forest were also quick to deny what Textor had said. Any other threads worth pulling at? Maybe the one that suggests Marinakis is in a prime position to buy Botafogo from Textor and add it to his multi club ownership model along with Rio Ave. I mean you could see how they could be potentially beneficial couldn't you based on the above?
Now when Marinakis took over Ave the club were in debt to the tune of €13m and languishing in the relegation zone. His ambition was to apparently turn Rio Ave into a top six… or seven club. So to clarify Evangelos, not a top six club but a top six or seven club? Gotcha. Let's look at the progress to date with that shall we?
2023/24 11th - 37 points
2024/25 11th - 38 points
2025/26 12th - 36 points
I mean had he said top 11… or 12 club then dear lord they'd be smashing it.
You may well have seen the transfer of Famalicão midfielder Gustavo Sá to Nottingham Forest was finalised for a fee of €20m this summer. Did he ever even step foot in England? I'm going to suggest that no he didn't given Forest were touring in the Algarve when he signed and he was then promptly loaned to Olympiacos for the next twelve months. Not quite as bad as the Pozzo family with Udinese and Watford in years gone by but it is pretty blatant isn't it? He'll join Jota Silva who is also on loan from… yes you guessed it - Nottingham Forest. Olympiacos also benefitted from signing Rio Aves two best players in Clayton and André Luiz last season. OK so yes there's the additional benefit of parking players between clubs in your multi club ownership structure but it's OK I'm sure that Rio Ave got full market value for both players from Olympiacos. Just like Gustavo Sá is playing in Greece for a season because of the experience. Helping them qualify for Champions League football wouldn't be beneficial to the Greek team at the end of the season if they won the league would it. Oh it would? Well that's awkward. Don't I feel stupid now.
Oh I have just found an interview with Marinakis where he talks about his purchase of Rio Ave, admits he's never been there but hopes to visit and talks at length about the importance of being a gateway to Brazilian talent. Fuck me I could have saved myself a lot of leg work there. Still at least he's confirmed what I had suspected. OK now I genuinely do feel stupid. Oh apparently also had talks previously to buy Vasco da Gama which seemingly never came to anything. In short expect Marinakis at some point to add one of the Brazilian clubs to his stable whichever one it might be. Given he brought Rio Ave without visiting I don't think he cares and neither will he care how many stands the ground has.
So a quick run down of the deals between his clubs under the multi club ownership.
2026/27
Nottingham Forest to Olympiacos
David Carmo €9.00m, Stefan Ortega Free, Gustavo Sá Loan and Jota Silva Loan
2025/26
Nottingham Forest to Rio Ave
Jonathan Panzo Loan, Omar Richards Loan, Eric da Silva Moreira Loan
2024/25
Brandon Aguilera to Rio Ave (No fee given), David Carmo to Olympiacos Loan, Marko Stamenić to Olympiacos Loan, Omar Richards to Rio Ave Loan, Jonathan Panzo Loan
2023/24
Outgoing from Forest
Giulian Biancone to Olympiacos (No fee given), Gustavo Scarpa to Olympiacos Loan, Omar Richards to Olympiacos Loan
If you start adding deals direct between Rio Ave and Olympiacos we could be here another ten minutes - basically you get the picture. There's a lot of movement of players between his three clubs in his multi club ownership model. So short term that's the first answer as to why Marinakis brought the club and long term it appears it will be the gateway for the Brazilian market.
2025/26 season
Last season’s home record read played 17, won 3, drawn 6, lost 8. GF 17, GA 29. This was the third worst overall record in the top flight, only relegated Tondela and AVS had poorer records. Last season’s away record read played 17, won 5, drawn 6, lost 6, GF 18, GA 28. Interestingly that gave them the sixth best away record in the division which feels like a huge anomaly.
We already mentioned the 4-1 defeat to the lions towards the end of the season, note they lost the reverse fixture 4-0 in turn.
2026/27 season
Transfers
Roland Galcik - Podbrezova – Free
Outgoing
Rio Ave pre-season results
July 11th - Arouca 2-1 W
July 15th - Portimonsense 3-0 W
July 19th - Al Ahli 2-2 D
July 23rd - Nottingham Forest B 5-2 W
August 1st - Tondela 3-1 W
2026/27 Fixtures
Matchday 1 - Gil Vicente (A)
Matchday 2 - FC Porto (H)
Matchday 3 - Estoril (A)
We'll bring you updates on signings and fixtures played in the forthcoming weeks before the two sides face off against each other.
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