Lina Souloukou: Biography, Career, and Rise in Football Leadership

Lina Souloukou is a Greek football executive known for her leadership roles at Olympiacos, AS Roma, and Nottingham Forest. With a professional background in law and sports management, she has built a career working behind the scenes at some of Europe’s most recognized football clubs. Her responsibilities have included club administration, strategic planning, and working with senior figures in the international football industry.

For fans who mainly follow the action on the pitch, football executives may seem less familiar than players and coaches. However, these professionals help shape a club’s direction, manage its operations, and make important decisions that affect its future. Souloukou’s career offers an interesting look at this side of the sport.

Her time at AS Roma attracted significant public attention in 2024, while her subsequent appointment at Nottingham Forest brought her back into the spotlight. Understanding her professional journey helps explain why her name has become associated with European football management.

Who Is Lina Souloukou?

Lina Souloukou is a Greek sports executive and lawyer who has worked in professional football for more than a decade. She is particularly known for serving as chief executive officer (CEO) of Olympiacos in Greece, AS Roma in Italy, and Nottingham Forest in England.

A CEO is responsible for overseeing an organization’s broader operations and helping turn its long-term plans into practical decisions. In a football club, this can involve business strategy, administration, commercial activities, and coordination between the club’s leadership and sporting departments.

Souloukou developed her professional expertise through legal education and experience in football administration. Her background in sports law gave her an understanding of the rules, contracts, and governance structures that influence modern professional football.

She also gained experience through the European Club Association (ECA), an organization that represents professional football clubs across Europe. Her involvement with the ECA helped establish her profile beyond the day-to-day operations of individual teams.

Rather than building a public reputation as a player or coach, Souloukou became known for her work in executive leadership, where important decisions are often made away from the pitch.

Lina Souloukou’s Early Life and Education

Souloukou was born in Greece and developed an interest in sports before establishing her career in football administration. Her professional path combined an understanding of athletics with formal legal education, giving her a foundation for working in an industry where business, regulations, and sporting ambitions frequently overlap.

She studied law and specialized in sports law, a field concerned with the legal issues affecting athletes, clubs, competitions, and sports organizations. These issues can include employment agreements, disciplinary matters, player transfers, commercial contracts, and organizational governance.

Her education also extended beyond Greece. Published biographical accounts report that she pursued further studies in Spain, including training related to sports law and management. This international experience was valuable in a football industry where clubs regularly work with players, agents, governing bodies, and commercial partners from different countries.

Before becoming a senior executive, Souloukou developed experience in legal and administrative work connected to sport. That combination helped prepare her for responsibilities that required both legal knowledge and an understanding of how football organizations operate.

Her educational background remains an important part of her professional story because it illustrates how a career in football can develop without following the traditional route of becoming a professional player or coach.

Lina Souloukou’s Career in Football

Souloukou’s career progressed from legal work into senior football administration. Her experience at Olympiacos established her credentials as a club executive, while her later positions at AS Roma and Nottingham Forest expanded her responsibilities in two major European football environments.

Her Role at Olympiacos

Olympiacos, based in Piraeus, Greece, is one of the country’s most prominent football clubs. The club competes in Greek football and has a substantial domestic and European following.

Souloukou became CEO of Olympiacos in 2018, following earlier work connected to the club’s legal and administrative operations. The position placed her in a senior leadership role at an organization with ambitions to compete successfully in domestic competitions and European tournaments.

As CEO, her work involved the business and administrative side of professional football. This type of position requires coordination among club departments, attention to organizational priorities, and an understanding of the commercial and regulatory environment in which a team operates.

Her experience at Olympiacos also strengthened her connection to the wider European football community. In 2019, she joined the European Club Association’s Executive Board, giving her a role in discussions involving football clubs across the continent.

Souloukou’s time at Olympiacos ended in June 2022. The club publicly acknowledged her contribution and wished her well in her future professional activities. Her departure marked the end of a significant stage in her career and preceded her move to Italian football.

Appointment as AS Roma CEO

In April 2023, AS Roma appointed Souloukou as its chief executive officer and general manager. The Italian club announced that she would take up the position immediately after completing the necessary formalities.

AS Roma is a well-known club in Serie A, Italy’s top professional football division. Based in the Italian capital, the team has a passionate fan base and a long history of competing in domestic and European competitions.

Her appointment reflected the club’s need for experienced leadership across its business and administrative operations. With her background in sports law and previous executive experience at Olympiacos, Souloukou brought knowledge of football governance and international club management.

As CEO and general manager, she worked within the club’s senior leadership structure, helping oversee its organizational direction. Her responsibilities existed alongside the work of coaches, players, and sporting personnel, whose roles focus more directly on performances and recruitment.

During her time at Roma, the club continued to attract attention for its ambitions in Italian and European football. The executive position also placed Souloukou in the middle of the pressures that come with managing a major club, where decisions can quickly become subjects of public debate.

Her tenure at Roma would ultimately become the most publicly controversial period of her career.

Why Did Lina Souloukou Leave AS Roma?

Souloukou stepped down as AS Roma’s CEO on September 22, 2024. Her resignation followed intense criticism from supporters after the club dismissed head coach Daniele De Rossi.

De Rossi is a former Roma captain and a highly recognizable figure among the club’s supporters. His departure generated considerable frustration, and Souloukou became a focus of the reaction surrounding the decision.

The controversy demonstrated how quickly disagreements over football management can extend beyond the coaching staff. At major clubs, supporters often have strong emotional connections to managers, players, and club traditions. Decisions involving popular figures can therefore create significant pressure on executives and ownership groups.

Media reports also described threats directed at Souloukou during this period, leading to concerns about her personal safety. The situation highlighted the risks that can arise when intense football rivalries and supporter anger cross the line into personal intimidation.

Roma confirmed her resignation in an official statement, thanked her for her service during a challenging period, and wished her well in her future career.

Her departure should be understood in that specific context. Although the controversy became closely associated with her time at Roma, it represented one episode in a longer professional career that had already included years of football administration.

Lina Souloukou at Nottingham Forest

After leaving Roma, Souloukou returned to a club environment connected to her previous experience at Olympiacos. Nottingham Forest announced her appointment as CEO in December 2024, with the role beginning on January 5, 2025.

Nottingham Forest competes in the English Premier League, one of the world’s most widely followed domestic football competitions. The club has a notable history in English and European football and operates in an environment where sporting results, commercial growth, and long-term planning receive considerable attention.

Forest’s owner, Evangelos Marinakis, is also associated with Olympiacos. Souloukou’s familiarity with the wider football organization and her previous executive experience were relevant to her appointment.

Her responsibilities at Nottingham Forest involved the club’s strategic direction and its long-term ambitions. Like other football CEOs, she worked within a structure that had to balance sporting objectives with operational and business priorities.

Her appointment also showed that her career continued after the highly publicized Roma episode. Moving to another major European club provided an opportunity to apply her experience in a different league and organizational setting.

However, her time at Nottingham Forest was relatively short. Reports in 2026 indicated that she left the CEO position at the end of the 2025–26 season. The club subsequently appointed Theodore Giannikos as its new chief executive, effective September 1, 2026.

As a result, Souloukou’s tenures at both Roma and Nottingham Forest have become important chapters in understanding her career, but neither should be confused with the entirety of her work in football.

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