Nottingham Forest owner Marinakis slams EFL after controversial refereeing in postponed Bournemouth game

“FRUSTRATED” Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis slammed the EFL claiming automatic “promotion has been snatched away”.

Forest missed out on second place on Tuesday after losing 1-0 to Bournemouth, who returned to the Premier League instead, at the Vitality Stadium.

Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis criticised the EFLAFP

The visitors claim they were denied a penalty when Sam Surridge appeared to be brought down by Cherries goalkeeper Mark Travers inside the area in the 41st minute.

Before referee Stuart Attwell got to make a decision, his assistant had already controversially flagged for offside.

Marinakis spoke to BBC Nottingham Sport and said he is “not happy” with the EFL as he feels his team were denied promotion from the Championship.

The Greek owner claims Forest were “not backed” by the league this season as he argued there were a number of costly errors from referees throughout their campaign.

The businessman also repeated his displeasure with the controversial postponement of February’s clash with Bournemouth.

The Cherries wanted the game to be rescheduled for safety reasons stating Storm Eunice caused damage at the Vitality Stadium.

The game was moved to May with Kieffer Moore, who was among Bournemouth‘s injured players during the original date three months ago, scoring the winner on 83 minutes.

The Olympiacos president also expressed his “frustration” and the “desire to see a fair referee and federation so that the game can be decided by the players on the grass” as he is “putting millions of pounds into the club”.

The 54-year-old added that Nottingham have written letters to the EFL regarding their complaints “a number of times but nothing happens”.

This comes after Forest manager Steve Cooper claimed referee Attwell apologised to him after the match.

Cooper said: “The players are disappointed, of course. And really annoyed with the ref; really annoyed with the referee.

“When the referee has asked to see me and apologised, held his hands up, it doesn’t make it any better. I think he’s tried to soften me up, to be honest, because he knows he and the linesman have made a huge error.

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Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis claims Premier League promotion was deniedGetty

“But it won’t soften me up. These things need to be reported correctly, which we do.

“There’s a lot of annoyance at that. There’s disappointment, but we don’t say too much after games. We’ll get back, reflect and keep going.”

Nottingham will now challenge for Premier League promotion via the Championship play-offs.