Evangelos "Vangelis" Marinakis (Ευάγγελος (Βαγγέλης) Μαρινάκης), born 30 July 1967) is a Greek businessman and investor, the principal shareholder of a number of companies operating in the shipping, media and football sectors.

[22] On 5 December 2023, Marinakis, through his newly established company Capital Offshore, invested $106 million to purchase a fleet of seven platform supply vessels.

[33] In May 2017, it was announced that Marinakis had completed a transaction to become the majority shareholder in English Championship club and former double European Cup winners Nottingham Forest.

[34] The Nottingham Post noted that Marinakis' acquisition of the club heralds "an exciting future that gives genuine reason for optimism".

[37] Although Forest announced £50 million plans to redevelop to the City Ground[38] and the Nigel Doughty Academy,[39] on 29 June 2022, they won promotion to the Premier League for the first time in 23 years, justifying the efforts and dreams of Marinakis.

[40] In November 2023, he completed the takeover of Portuguese club Rio Ave, investing over €20.5 million to reportedly settle debts and upgrade facilities, in collaboration with football agent Jorge Mendes.

[41] On 31 January 2024, Marinakis hosted a conference at the City Ground with Harvard University and the Lilian Thuram Foundation focusing on tackling racism and gender inequality in football.

[42][43] In September 2016, Marinakis, through his company Alter Ego Media, won one of four national television licenses auctioned in Greece after spending EUR 73.9m ($82.8m) in a highly unusual competitive bidding process.

[45] The court approval for the transfer ownership of DOL to Alter Ego followed the latter's success as the highest bidder in an auction process held earlier in 2017.

DOL is one of Greece's historic major media groups, and includes the top selling Ta Nea and To Vima newspapers, two of the country's oldest dailies, as well as a popular news portal, magazines and a radio station.

[47] In February 2021, Marinakis wrote the lyrics of the hit song "Excitement" ("Eksapsi") by Greek pop star Natassa Theodoridou.

[68] In November 2017, Marinakis received the Lloyd's List "Greek Shipping Personality of the Year" Award at a special ceremony in Athens.

Nigel Lowry of Lloyd's List said Marinakis was the "outstanding candidate" for the award and noted his $1 billion investment in fleet capacity in 2017, his "dynamic dealmaking" in the shipping sector, as well as a range of other activities across philanthropy, sports and media.

[72] In September 2014, he privately financed commemorative celebrations for the 200 years since the foundation of the Filiki Etairia and the creation of a bust of Alexander Ypsilantis in Athens.

[82] In the past, Olympiacos has supported the Japan earthquake relief fund,[83] and acted in support to the non-profit environmental organization Arcturos, the pediatric clinics of St Sofia hospital in Athens and the General Hospital in Limassol, various blood collection campaigns, Greek and international children's charities, including Elpida, the Steven Gerrard Foundation,[84] the Hatzikyriakos Foundation.

[85] In September 2017, Marinakis sponsored a special conference in Athens in partnership with Harvard University, to focus on football's social responsibility, with specific reference to refugees.

[78][86] In November 2017, Marinakis led an aid effort, through Olympiacos,[87] to bring relief to the victims of massive flooding that hit the town of Mandra in the Attica region of Greece.

[88] In July 2018, Marinakis donated €1 million through Olympiacos, to help the victims of the deadliest wildfires to hit Greece in decades,[89] which swept through an area near Athens.

[109] Marinakis, along with the president of second-division club Ilioupoli, Giorgos Tsakogiannis and others, cooperated so that a group of hardcore Olympiacos fans would travel on 13 March 2011 to a third division match and provoke riots to bring about a penalty.

The prosecutor's report says that "Tsakogiannis informed [Ioannis] Papadopoulos that he had made arrangements and Evangelos Marinakis was aware of the plan for Olympiacos fans to cause riots".

[114] Another investigation which led to the 2015 Greek football scandal, started in 2014 after prosecutor Aristidis Koreas was given the go-ahead by a council of judges[115] to make use of secretly recorded phone conversations[116] that point to the involvement of various sports officials, including Evangelos Marinakis.

According to Koreas, "the president of Olympiakos and close associates approached and tried to use policemen, judges, politicians and other powerful figures for their own ends as part of the planning and establishment of a criminal organization".

[115] According to the prosecutor, Marinakis was helped by the President of the Greek Football Association, Giorgos Sarris, to choose specific referees to oversee key games.

[123] In November 2017, the judicial council of the Court of Appeals rejected imposing provisional custody on Marinakis and also dropped various charges after deeming them "absolutely groundless".

[127][128] On 28 January 2021, the three-member criminal court of appeal unanimously acquitted Marinakis and 27 others of match-fixing, in a case stretching back several years.

Athens judges ruled that there is no evidence for the two charges attributed to the defendants, following their alleged participation in a criminal group including altering the outcome of matches.

[137] The accusations against Marinakis were described as "very serious charges" following an investigation after the tanker Noor 1 was intercepted at the Greek port of Piraeus carrying 2.1 tonnes of heroin in 2014.

[138] According to the jailed co-owner of Noor 1, Efthymios Yiannousakis, the vessel had in fact carried an additional ton of heroin (worth $70 million) which was unloaded on the island of Crete and trafficked to mainland Europe before Greek authorities managed to intercept the rest of the cargo.

The dispute was called upon to be resolved by the judicial council, which of its own volition decided that the interrogation should continue, now separated from the Turkish financiers and traffickers of the heroin.

[142] Marinakis, along with a few other businessmena, was labelled an oligarch by Alexis Tsipras and the former Syriza government due to his significant political influence in Greece, especially through media acquisitions such as Mega, ΔΟΛ, Eleftherotypia and the "Argos" distribution agency.