Promotion and recruitment work add £30m to squad
NOTTINGHAM Forest are already reaping the rewards of one of the biggest benefits of Premier League promotion.
A return to the top flight after more than two decades away will bring a financial boost, the likes of which have never been felt on Trentside. The Premier League was a behemoth when the Reds were relegated in 1999, but the top flight has grown to become one of the premier sports brands in the world.
Indeed, television companies pay £10 billion for the rights to broadcast Premier League matches, so with promotion has come a massive financial boost to enable Forest to mix it with the best teams in the country week in and week out.
Forest’s owner, Evangelos Marinakis, has been true to his word and backed head coach Steve Cooper with funds to strengthen a side that relied a lot on loanees last season.
“We will give Steve and his team all the ammunition he needs in order to be competitive next season and will try not only to maintain our position in the Premier League, but to perform well because the sky is the limit,” Marinakis said after promotion was confirmed at Wembley last month.
And that is exactly what has happened with Forest’s recruitment model based around players who can perform in the Premier League and who have a high ceiling.
Taiwo Awoniyi cost a club-record £17.5m while Dean Henderson, on loan, if he were sold by Manchester United would easily cost any team north of £20m. Meanwhile, Moussa Niakhate has joined from Mainz with the defender reportedly costing around £10m.
Omar Richards and Giulian Biancone are other players who have joined this summer with the potential to increase in value and will have been attracted by the prospect of Premier League football. Niakhate is the oldest of that clutch of players at 26 with experience already plentiful at Forest in the form of Steve Cook and Jack Colback.
Forest getting promotion was equally as important for the club’s chances of holding onto their top talent, too, with Brennan Johnson signing a new contract with his boyhood club. The website Transfermarkt values the Reds’ squad value at around £104 million, a £30m increase on last season’s total.
Crucially, that figure for 2021-22 counted the loanees Forest had whereas this time - bar Henderson the overall number is higher with the club’s own players.