Enter the Dragan

Kenai

Kenai

Kenai

Man of Honour
Joined
5 Apr 2009
Posts
27,096
Firstly, apologies for the horrendous thread title but I couldn't help myself.

Sport Republic, primarily backed by Serbian billionaire Dragan Solak, has bought Gao Jisheng's 80% ownership share of Southampton FC.

Been rumours of a takeover for a while, with Gao seemingly keen to get out, which gathered a bit of momentum in late 2021, so not entirely out of the blue.

Don't know all that much about Sport Republic or the people behind it but hopefully it'll see a bit more investment in a stable longer term plan. I doubt we'll be splashing cash as Newcastle are expecting, as it seems more of a development/investment from what I've read so far, rather than a billionaire's play thing.
 
BaZ87 said:
This article might be of interest to you:

https://trainingground.guru/articles/ankersen-leads-southampton-takeover-by-sport-republic

The brains behind Sport Republic is the former Brentford Director of Football and is/was also involved in Midtjylland, another moneyball side from Denmark who ended up qualifying for the CL a couple of seasons ago.
Click to expand...

Interesting and seems to confirm what I expected - unlikely to see money being thrown about in the short term but some longer term strategy around development / talent sourcing probably on the cards, with some genuine backing.

Gao has been uneventful, not good but not particularly bad either, so it'll be interesting to see how much difference this ownership change will make on the pitch over the next few years.
 
Kenai said:
Interesting and seems to confirm what I expected - unlikely to see money being thrown about in the short term but some longer term strategy around development / talent sourcing probably on the cards, with some genuine backing.

Gao has been uneventful, not good but not particularly bad either, so it'll be interesting to see how much difference this ownership change will make on the pitch over the next few years.
Click to expand...
Back to the buy low, sell high strategy of a few years ago. I look forward to you supplying Liverpool with VVD's replacement in 3 years time.
 
BaZ87 said:
Have you misplaced your sense of humour today Rob? It was a joke. Your reply was funny though, as if other clubs do rely on their own academy for their entire side.
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The double irony being virtually all the players we sold to Liverpool we poached from somewhere else!

This story looks like good news the club have been treading water for about 4 years as Gao seemingly had no money or plan hopefully we can at least see some common sense in the transfer market again and be punching above our weight for a few more seasons.
 
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