The Football Association is looking into a banner that Crystal Palace supporters unfurled that featured Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis posing with a gun to the head of midfielder Morgan Gibbs-White.
According to well-placed sources, Forest are deeply disappointed that supporters were permitted to enter Selhurst Park.
The BBC has contacted Crystal Palace to request comment.
The banner read, “Mr. Marinakis is not involved in blackmail, match-fixing, drug trafficking, or corruption,” as Palace and Forest did on Sunday in Selhurst Park, which gave the game a 1-1 draw.
Marinakis has consistently refuted accusations of wrongdoing in connection with these allegations.
The FA will determine whether Palace will receive punishment by looking at the banner.
Such banners contain offensive language and defamatory, political, and other messages that must be communicated in strict guidelines.
Following a contentious summer that saw Palace and Forest be relegated to the Europa Conference League and Forest joining the Europa League because the London club broke Uefa’s multi-club ownership regulations, the banner will heighten the tensions between the two clubs.
Crystal Palace’s removal from the Europa League was described as “the biggest injustice in football history,” according to Palace chairman Steve Parish last month.
However, the City Ground is now deeply irritated that more work was not done to stop the banner from being displayed.
Forest perceives the banner as inflammatory and xenophobic. They are privately asking why Palace and the club’s owners, Woody Johnson, Parish, Josh Harris, and David Blitzer, have not publicly criticized the banner.
After the London club appeared to have triggered the England international’s £60m release clause, Gibbs-White was on the verge of leaving Forest for Tottenham earlier this summer.
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- Nottingham Forest
- Crystal Palace
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Source: BBC
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