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Nottingham Forest owner sues Crystal Palace over ‘gun banner’ by: Adham Harker August 13, 2026 Aug 13, 2026 | By: Adham Harker Evangelos Marinakis, the Greek shipping magnate who owns Nottingham Forest Football Club (‘Forest’), has issued libel proceedings against Crystal Palace Football Club (‘Palace’) and ‘Persons Unknown’ over a banner displayed by Palace’s supporters at Selhurst Park last August. The banner included an image of Marinakis holding a gun to the head of Forest midfielder Morgan Gibbs-White, captioned: “Mr Marinakis is not involved in blackmail, match-fixing, drug trafficking or corruption.” The ‘Persons Unknown’ are likely to be the people said to be responsible for producing and unfurling the banner, but the precise definition of them is not yet publicly available. There are three interesting parts to this claim. First, what the words mean. While the words state literally that Mr Marinakis is not involved in blackmail (etc.), libel is not concerned with the strict literal meaning. What is important is what the ‘reasonable ordinary reader’ would understand the words to mean. Such a reader is a hypothetical person capable of reading sarcasm and innuendo, and ‘reading between the lines’, but is not ‘avid for scandal’. While the claim itself is not yet in the public domain, one would expect that Marinakis will say that the meaning is that he is involved in blackmail (etc.), in part due to the juxtaposition of the words and the image. Second, whether there was serious harm to Marinakis’s reputation (or the likelihood of it) resulting form the banner. On the one hand, the banner was displayed at a football ground with tens of thousands of fans present, and garnered significant coverage in the media. That said, even if the meaning is found to be defamatory of Marinakis, it will presumably remain open to Palace (and the ‘Persons Unknown’) to argue that the banner was plainly a joke, and would not have caused anyone to actually think less of him. They may also point to Marinakis’s consistent denials of wrongdoing. Thirdly, there is a responsibility for publication point, i.e. who is responsible ‘publishing’ the banner. It is unlikely to be argued that Palace commissioned/arranged the banner, and so their liability will presumably be on the basis that the club is responsible for the conduct of their fans inside the stadium. That leads to an intersection with English football’s regulatory framework, which makes club’s liable for the conduct of their fans: after the match, the FA charged Palace with failing to ensure its fans did not behave in an improper, offensive or provocative manner. The ‘Persons Unknown’ will likely be those who actually procured the banner and unfurled it in the stadium. Whether they contest the claim will likely depend on whether they are identified. After Palace defends the claim, further details about it will become known. Articles are intended as an introduction to the topic and do not constitute legal advice by: Tom Double August 11, 2026 by: Hermione Hill August 9, 2026 August 7, 2026