Nottingham Forest, Edu and what his role could be in the Marinakis football empire

When Edu first returned to Arsenal in 2019, the club described him as being the “final and very important piece of the jigsaw”.

They were heading into a new era, following the departure of their legendary manager Arsene Wenger, and the former midfielder returned to north London in a suit, rather than a tracksuit, to play a key role as Mikel Arteta stamped his influence on the club.

The Brazilian was hired as Arsenal’s technical director. But three years after his return, in 2022, he was promoted to be their first sporting director, and his reputation in the industry continued to grow.

So it was a shock when, in November 2024, news broke that he had resigned from Arsenal and was expected to take up a role at the group of clubs controlled by Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis.

Then, last weekend, came some visual confirmation that things were progressing. He was a guest of Forest during the 1-0 defeat to Everton and was pictured shaking hands with people and greeting them in the directors’ box at the City Ground.

And Nuno Espirito Santo has confirmed that he had a conversation with Edu, Marinakis and other recruitment staff.

“I had the chance to be with him (Edu) after the game. We speak, the president, all of the scouting team. It was after the game, in a normal situation,” said Nuno in his press conference ahead of the trip to face Tottenham on Monday. “We speak with the president, we speak with everybody.”

Forest told The Athletic that Edu was not yet an employee of the group. They said that no contract or agreement had been reached.

If Edu does join Forest, he is expected to officially start work in the summer, in what will effectively be a global director of football role, spanning the three clubs in the Marinakis stable, which includes Olympiacos (Greece) and Rio Ave (Portugal).

Forest added that there is still a world in which Edu does not join. But if he does, Nuno says he is comfortable with the notion of working under a director of football.

“Yes, of course. I have been in many clubs and all of them are specific situations,” he said. “First of all, the priority is the present. My job is the present; this is what we speak about.”

As we wait for his official appointment — the details are still being agreed — it is slightly unclear what piece of the puzzle he will fill at Forest specifically, with Edu expected to take on a broader remit within the Marinakis football organisation.

But Forest are on the verge of a huge leap forward. Their goal under Marinakis and head coach Nuno is to qualify for the Champions League this season, decades after last playing in Europe.

Forest’s sister club, Olympiacos, are waiting to see if they will secure an immediate place in the competition after they won the Greek Superleague title last weekend. If not, they will have to go through the qualifying rounds.

If both clubs do qualify, Marinakis is expected to put his shares in Forest into a blind trust to comply with UEFA regulations that would allow both clubs to compete in the same competition.

Marinakis would then take a step back from his influence at the City Ground, which will require a degree of restructuring. The influence of Lina Souloukou would then be even more significant. She was officially appointed as Forest CEO in late December, although her role also spans across the Marinakis multi-club group.

Souloukou is a trusted figure, having previously held a similar role at Olympiacos. She initially joined the Athens club in 2016 as a legal advisor to Marinakis. Within two years, she progressed to the role of general manager.

That swift rise to effectively overseeing the running of the biggest club in Greek football — and the trust she forged with the Greek shipping and media magnate — is one of the reasons she will be increasingly important at the City Ground in the coming months.

But Edu’s appointment would deliver someone who has built their reputation at a Premier League club which managed to successfully make its way back to the top tier of European football.

Edu is expected to also play a part in Marinakis’ plan to expand his football establishment into Edu’s home country, Brazil, with negotiations having been held with Vasco da Gama.

This would be different to his experience in his previous job. At Arsenal, it was not a multi-club model. Edu, 46, handled contract renewals, signings and offloading players who became surplus to requirements. There were numerous transfer market successes in his time there, including Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard.

If appointed, Edu — along with the Forest recruitment team, which includes global technical director George Syrianos, chief football officer Ross Wilson and head of recruitment Pedro Ferreira — could play a part in signings this summer.

Talks are understood to have taken place to identify some potential targets for the project, but it is Edu’s abilities as a communicator and negotiator that may prove to be just as valuable.

He was also involved in the running of the academy at Arsenal. At Forest, the work at the Nigel Doughty Academy has always been a source of pride, with the B team progressing to the final of the Premier League International Cup by beating Spanish side Athletic Club 2-0 after extra time at the City Ground on Tuesday night. 

If Forest’s first team secure their own path into Europe, the youth production line will be as important as ever, with Champions League squads required to include four homegrown players who have come through the ranks at the club.

Forest’s academy players out on loan include Ben Perry (Northampton Town), Jamie McDonnell (Colchester United) and Joe Gardner (Lincoln City), and the starting XI of Tuesday night’s B team comprised 10 players who were born in Nottingham and have been at the academy for several years.

However, in the first-team squad, Forest only have Ryan Yates and defender Zach Abbott as homegrown players.

Forest also signed Joel Ndala from Manchester City as an academy player for precisely this reason, in the hope that he will add to those numbers further down the line, if he can fulfil his potential.

Increasing the first-team players produced by the academy may be an area where Edu could have an impact.

Having been part of the ‘Invincibles’ side under Wenger at Arsenal as a player, when he returned as technical director, he was involved in the appointment of Arteta, who immediately led the club to FA Cup success in 2019.

Between them, the duo turned Arsenal back into a club capable of challenging for Premier League and Champions League titles.

Now he could help Forest enter a new era of their own.

(Top photo: Edu at the City Ground; by Bradley Collyer/PA Images via Getty Images)