Sport Republic

[Saint86]

21 hours ago, AlexSerbia said:

Hi guys, a Serb here. So, the lead investor, Dragan Šolak, is a person who is an owner of TV channels and news outlets who are actually fighting for free speech in Serbia and against corrupted government that has ties with organised crime and mafia. So, basically, he's one of the good guys. He is portrayed by state controlled media as a number 1 public enemy, because he's media outlets are exposing a lot of corruption and crime. Don't use sources as Kurir, Blic, Informer, Alo, Serbian Telegraph, Pink, Prva, B92, RTS. These are all big outlets controlled by our government. Dragan's media outlets are N1, Nova and SportKlub. I wish you luck, you are in good hands.

Hi Alex. Thanks for sharing.

I watched one of his interviews after reading some of the terrible rumours about him after the takeover. Was extremely impressed by him and what he advocated. Any doubts i had were over in minutes! 

[tajjuk]

14 hours ago, Charlie Wayman said:

I wonder if Katerina by retaining her small investment in SFC is an emotional nod to her late father's passion for the club? If so good on her.

I'd would be nice to think that and I hope it is that, but more likely IMO is that she is a very wealthy woman, she doesn't need the money out right now and thinks the right investors will progress the club and its worth in the years ahead will be a lot higher, and thus so will be her 20%.

Sub £200 million for a PL club seems very cheap to me, as being pointed out that players like Grealish are going for £100 million. Of course what players are sold for and what their 'value' is is a different debate. But a PL club that owns their own stadium with a state of the art training ground and category 1 academy you'd think would be worth a lot more, I mean one seasons TV deal is worth more than half the purchase price. 

[saint1977]

13 hours ago, Ex Lion Tamer said:

This is interesting because surely Semmens has to take responsibility for poor decisions under him as CEO?

In principle I agree with that statement. The issue may be that the football side - the primary focus because Les left it in such a disgraceful state - sucked away nearly every penny to try to keep the club in the PL (and in existence frankly after the MSD loan) to try and fix all of the huge financial bloopers on player trading and the rapidly declining academy.

That may have meant that Martin inherited some of Krueger’s ops directors who he hasn’t rated and wanted rid of but hasn’t had the capacity or bandwidth until a takeover was completed to make the changes he has wanted. Also, skilled political operators at Director or head of service level can hide or misrepresent serious underlying operational issues until they burst into the public domain eg season tickets, new card systems, capital maintenance and procurement. That might account for some of the localised discontent from staff that the OP on the UI. 

None of this grants Semmens and Steele a free pass as all areas at a PL level ought to be high performing but it may mean that they can replace and upgrade posts and personnel in key non football areas of the business on a bit more of an even and competitive keel in the club’s peer group.

[offsidetrap]

Tadic is meant to be doing his badges soon.. Maybe there's a chance to get him back now.

[Fan The Flames]

1 hour ago, SalmonSi said:

To be fair though, making those kinds of profits is a lot easier when you are working your way up the leagues. You snap up lower league gems as you know of them well, they grow with you ALA Ricky Lambert and then you sell them on at huge profits. Not so easy to do if you are a PL regular as we are. 

Agreed, it's about the pathway and its easier to provide a pathway lower down the leagues but much harder in the Prem, this was our problem before. I guess this is where the linked clubs are meant to assist.

Edited 6 January, 2022 by Fan The Flames

[John B]

7 minutes ago, Fan The Flames said:

Agreed, it's about the pathway and I guess. Its easier to provide a pathway lower down the leagues but much harder in the Prem, this was our problem before. I guess this is where the linked clubs are meant to assist.

I do not really understand what linked clubs will bring to SFC can anyone please explain

 

I think I read that Man City have linked clubs but they still buy from clubs all over the world which are not linked to them

[Matthew Le God]

5 minutes ago, John B said:

I do not really understand what linked clubs will bring to SFC can anyone please explain

I think I read that Man City have linked clubs but they still buy from clubs all over the world which are not linked to them

Sharing of scouting networks and loaning of players to a club with the same philosophy. Transferring of players between clubs as they progress.

[John B]

8 minutes ago, Matthew Le God said:

Sharing of scouting networks and loaning of players to a club with the same philosophy. Transferring of players between clubs as they progress.

Just seems far from practical to me why would a top player want to come to Southamton if they we wanted by Liverpool

What clubs run this scheme 

 

[Matthew Le God]

10 minutes ago, John B said:

Just seems far from practical to me why would a top player want to come to Southamton if they we wanted by Liverpool

What clubs run this scheme 

I'm not sure why you think that is relevant to setting up a group of connected clubs. 

Examples...

- Man City group of clubs

- Red Bull group

- Watford, Udinese & Granada

The group doesn’t need to be at the Man City level for it to be 'practical' and useful to all clubs in the group.

Edited 6 January, 2022 by Matthew Le God

[nta786]

2 hours ago, Saint86 said:

Hi Sheaf, that was me.

It was based on this analysis here (below), but it only covered 2014-18. Obviously beyond the period covered they continued to sit at the top of the championship table before getting promoted and getting the new stadium. This is several years of success back to back. Very different to the Reed/Kruger era with the "Black Box" model of selling players Koeman signed and then spending the money on utter garbage (simplifying 😅). Consider that Brentford made a comparable profit (from the championship - to our sales on just VVD and Mane) whilst selling more of their best players than we did, and then managing to reinvest it year after year. Rasmus has a very good track record and its exciting to see if he can help improve us (although we've been doing that much better ourselves in recent windows).

Worth noting as well, then when Brentford arrived in the Championship in 2014 - they had the smallest playing budget. Is it too much to dream of that being scaled up to Southampton? 😆

I'll say one thing for Gao chairmanship - he got rid of Reed, Krueger etc. and got us running with Semmens, Ralph, Crocker etc.

Plus he's left us with what looks to be an exciting future.

 

Yep, also I think FFP uses accounting profit rather than pure cash profits which means there is more room to spend as long as that makes the Accounts look better.

Looking at some of these prices though, there are always bargains to be had, wish we went for some more punts.

[John B]

4 minutes ago, Matthew Le God said:

I'm not sure why you think that is relevant to setting up a group of connected clubs. 

Examples...

- Man City group of clubs

- Red Bull group

- Watford, Udinese & Granada

The group doesn’t need to be at the Man City level for it to be 'practical' and useful to all clubs in the group.

Thank you

By not being practical I meant that a top player in Udinese would more likely want to play for Liverpool than Watford

 

[S-Clarke]

1 minute ago, John B said:

Thank you

By not being practical I meant that a top player in Udinese would more likely want to play for Liverpool than Watford

 

I see where you are coming from, and there are many instances where players don't move around the groups and they get higher moves. So for example if our group takes over FC Gallen and they have a new Halland there, the likelihood is that he will go elsewhere if we don't catch him early enough (i.e before he's a full pro).

The real benefit I can see from our point of view is having a consistent avenue to loan our players to. The clubs will ultimately have similar structures and similar ways of playing and recruiting, so there could be good avenues for our younger players to move clubs to gain experience whilst still retaining the same ethos as they would here. That's how I see us benefiting - not so much recruiting players in, but by providing feeder club options for our younger players.

[Matthew Le God]

Just now, John B said:

By not being practical I meant that a top player in Udinese would more likely want to play for Liverpool than Watford

Of course, but that does not render all the other benefits useless. 

Marcel Sabitzer was at RB Salzburg and then RB Leipzig before his move to Bayern Munich. Both Salzburg and Leipzig benefitted from him before his move to an elite club.

[Mattster]

3 minutes ago, John B said:

Thank you

By not being practical I meant that a top player in Udinese would more likely want to play for Liverpool than Watford

 

"Play" perhaps being the operative word here. How often do we see bright young things bought by the big clubs, only to spend years on the bench? I think younger players are cottoning on to the fact that they need game time to develop, and that they are much more likely to get that at smaller clubs. This is where clubs like ours really do have something to offer - Premier league game time - giving players the chance to show what they can do. If they really are good enough, people will notice.

[Fan The Flames]

5 minutes ago, John B said:

Thank you

By not being practical I meant that a top player in Udinese would more likely want to play for Liverpool than Watford

 

It meant to work when you purchase a promising younger player, who is not yet ready for our squad. They can then be loaned out to a club in your group, who play a similar style of football, where they can progress until they are ready to join our squad.

The owner of Brighton also owns a team in Belgium who have two Brighton players on loan.

[SuperSAINT]

6 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

I see where you are coming from, and there are many instances where players don't move around the groups and they get higher moves. So for example if our group takes over FC Gallen and they have a new Halland there, the likelihood is that he will go elsewhere if we don't catch him early enough (i.e before he's a full pro).

The real benefit I can see from our point of view is having a consistent avenue to loan our players to. The clubs will ultimately have similar structures and similar ways of playing and recruiting, so there could be good avenues for our younger players to move clubs to gain experience whilst still retaining the same ethos as they would here. That's how I see us benefiting - not so much recruiting players in, but by providing feeder club options for our younger players.

I’m late to the party on this but also the post-brexit signing of players can be helped by the multi-club scenario, right?

[S-Clarke]

4 minutes ago, SuperSAINT said:

I’m late to the party on this but also the post-brexit signing of players can be helped by the multi-club scenario, right?

Yep, potential benefit as well.

It will help us to have European avenues to send players that is already in place, rather than having to scour the market for a club who may take player x.

[Chez]

48 minutes ago, Fan The Flames said:

It meant to work when you purchase a promising younger player, who is not yet ready for our squad. They can then be loaned out to a club in your group, who play a similar style of football, where they can progress until they are ready to join our squad.

The owner of Brighton also owns a team in Belgium who have two Brighton players on loan.

have Brighton benefitted in terms of acquiring players from that Belgium club too? 

[Saint Garrett]

I really don't agree with the whole, "group of clubs" thing.  Can see it not being allowed at some point.

[Matthew Le God]

6 minutes ago, Saint Garrett said:

I really don't agree with the whole, "group of clubs" thing.  Can see it not being allowed at some point.

Why don't you agree with it?

[Saint Garrett]

14 minutes ago, Matthew Le God said:

Why don't you agree with it?

Because I don't. Personally I think if someone owns one club, they shouldn't be allowed to own another. Unfortunately, or fortunately for us, it's allowed.

[derry]

18 hours ago, pimpin4rizeal said:

I’m astonished really.. cortese persuaded Marcus to buy the club for a poxy 25 mil around and had risen the value to probably around 200m by the time he left Marcus had complete trust in the man. He found pochetino from nowhere, put amazing scouts in place like Paul allen took us up 2 divisions and improving all the time yet the guy gets treated like satan here for not even spending that much tbh.

 

It was less than that. The administrator quoted to me "change from £14m". That included all debts, the FC, The Holding Company, paying an agreed settlement to clear SMS mortgage, Staplewood, Jackson's farm etc. That was an unbelievable snip at that cost. What was amazing was that ML/NC were the only bidder at the time. That is other than from joke timewasters.

Edited 6 January, 2022 by derry

[Wurzel]

20 minutes ago, Saint Garrett said:

I really don't agree with the whole, "group of clubs" thing.  Can see it not being allowed at some point.

I'd have thought the opposite, can see it becoming if not the norm then inreasingly popular. In fact it doesn't even need group ownership to benefit the clubs. Man Utd for instance have "loaned" at least 30 of their up and coming players to Royal Antwerp over the years to get matchday experience, based on nothing more than  a mutual agreement. But the group ownership would have more financial advantages.

[Daft Kerplunk]

It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out. The comparisons with Red Bull seem a little wayward given that Red Bull have poured tons of cash into stadium development, sponsorship etc. to help their clubs compete at a higher level. It’d be great to see this new ownership doing that but it’s not apparent yet, although there hasn’t been any real detail.  I’m hopeful that the academy hierarchy and commercial team leadership are shitting themselves a bit given how rubbish those areas have been over recent years. 

[captainchris]

32 minutes ago, Daft Kerplunk said:

It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out. The comparisons with Red Bull seem a little wayward given that Red Bull have poured tons of cash into stadium development, sponsorship etc. to help their clubs compete at a higher level. It’d be great to see this new ownership doing that but it’s not apparent yet, although there hasn’t been any real detail.  I’m hopeful that the academy hierarchy and commercial team leadership are shitting themselves a bit given how rubbish those areas have been over recent years. 

Yes agree with all that. Semmens has had a lot of control granted to him by the previous owner and for too long the academy, B team and commercial side were very poor indeed. It seems that he was untouchable. However Semmens might not have that total control and lack of pressure any more which will be a good thing, he might even need to think and act more ambitiously now.

[Jonnyboy]

12 hours ago, CB Fry said:

Precisely - Cortese departed and we didn't subsequently go bust so as you say absolutely no problem.

The real problem was our owner's premature death 😔

[saint lard]

I think some of the constant restraints we have been working under for a considerable time,are finally going to be released. 

Decision making is going to be a lot quicker now….and acting upon them will be vastly quicker. 
the shackles have been loosened. 

[hypochondriac]

Just now, saint lard said:

I think some of the constant restraints we have been working under for a considerable time,are finally going to be released. 

Decision making is going to be a lot quicker now….and acting upon them will be vastly quicker. 
the shackles have been loosened. 

That's what I have done hoping for. No real change in strategy, just more strengthening and acting quickly and decisively. 

[MarkSFC]

I am very excited by this takeover and what it could bring in the coming years. On the assumption this really is a long term (ongoing) project of Sport Republic, I can see the club status raised considerably over the next few years.

One of the main bits I took from Semmens words on Solent was the bit about being able to do things quicker than previously planned. 

 

I hope this means 2 or even 3 players this months, a GK and a number 10 are suggested in the press as Ralph's priority which can't be argued with, but I'd love a DCM as well. 

 

I fell this is going to be a really positive time for the team and the club, I have a similar feeling to when Markus and Cortese turned up. 

 

As ever only time will tell but after a few years of stagnation and restriction this is very much a breath of fresh air!!😁

[Lighthouse]

If anyone wants to carry on the media/political chat

 

[Saint_clark]

6 hours ago, Daft Kerplunk said:

It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out. The comparisons with Red Bull seem a little wayward given that Red Bull have poured tons of cash into stadium development, sponsorship etc. to help their clubs compete at a higher level. It’d be great to see this new ownership doing that but it’s not apparent yet, although there hasn’t been any real detail.  I’m hopeful that the academy hierarchy and commercial team leadership are shitting themselves a bit given how rubbish those areas have been over recent years. 

Commercially we are absolutely abysmal. I don't know how much of that is just down to where we are both in physical location and standing in the game.

[Fan The Flames]

7 hours ago, Daft Kerplunk said:

It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out. The comparisons with Red Bull seem a little wayward given that Red Bull have poured tons of cash into stadium development, sponsorship etc. to help their clubs compete at a higher level. It’d be great to see this new ownership doing that but it’s not apparent yet, although there hasn’t been any real detail.  I’m hopeful that the academy hierarchy and commercial team leadership are shitting themselves a bit given how rubbish those areas have been over recent years. 

I dont think many have compared this to Red Bull. Red Bull has just been used as an example of a multi club system.

[Roo1976]

Right just to clear things up......................are we potentially rich as a club now or not?

[Saint86]

1 minute ago, Roo1976 said:

Right just to clear things up......................are we potentially rich as a club now or not?

in FM terms, we are secure.

[NewYorkSaint]

From everything I've seen, this is a fantastic step forward for the club. The deal offers answers to the key question we've had to wrestle with for years: how can a club like Southampton survive against the silly money clubs of the premier league?

Answer: leverage that silly money against them by having a smarter strategy for funneling in talent. That talent can keep us secure in mid-table or better, and we can, from time to time, benefit from the inflated £££ being paid for players that have proven their worth. There are two key aspects to that strategy.

1) Use state of the art data to make smart acquisitions and playing strategies. Brentford has shown the potential here.

2) Create a network of clubs that can act as a feeder system.

There's a third part that I haven't heard talked about but I hope they will implement: create half a dozen academies around the world and become known as the club that can take a player from the streets of Africa or Asia or South America right to the premier league. That will further help create a global fanbase and boost the long-term financial viability of the club.

Semmens is a terrific CEO. I'm delighted they're anchoring their strategy around him and his vision. 

I predict good times ahead, friends.

[NewYorkSaint]

...and if you need any further persuasion, watch this impressive talk by the key football brain in our new world...  (apologies if already linked here).  

 

[whelk]

Reading the Athletic article makes me even more confident we have decent owners. Seems Kat’s man on the board, Bogli was key to us not accepting any old bid from interest of 24 potentials 

assume only works if you have subscription

https://theathletic.com/3054504/2022/01/07/better-late-than-never-two-years-and-24-unsuccessful-buyers-later-southampton-have-finally-been-sold/?source=user_shared_article

 

 

Edited 7 January, 2022 by whelk

[Tamesaint]

23 minutes ago, whelk said:

Reading the Athletic article makes me even more confident we have decent owners. Seems Kat’s man on the board, Bogli was key to us not accepting any old bid from interest of 24 potentials 

assume only works if you have subscription

https://theathletic.com/3054504/2022/01/07/better-late-than-never-two-years-and-24-unsuccessful-buyers-later-southampton-have-finally-been-sold/?source=user_shared_article

 

 

I wonder who the hotelier was.

[Daft Kerplunk]

5 hours ago, NewYorkSaint said:

From everything I've seen, this is a fantastic step forward for the club. The deal offers answers to the key question we've had to wrestle with for years: how can a club like Southampton survive against the silly money clubs of the premier league?

Answer: leverage that silly money against them by having a smarter strategy for funneling in talent. That talent can keep us secure in mid-table or better, and we can, from time to time, benefit from the inflated £££ being paid for players that have proven their worth. There are two key aspects to that strategy.

1) Use state of the art data to make smart acquisitions and playing strategies. Brentford has shown the potential here.

2) Create a network of clubs that can act as a feeder system.

There's a third part that I haven't heard talked about but I hope they will implement: create half a dozen academies around the world and become known as the club that can take a player from the streets of Africa or Asia or South America right to the premier league. That will further help create a global fanbase and boost the long-term financial viability of the club.

Semmens is a terrific CEO. I'm delighted they're anchoring their strategy around him and his vision. 

I predict good times ahead, friends.

The third part would take more investment that imagined, academies are expensive to operate, a country like the US and continent like Africa is vast so where would you be based, and it’s likely to be more efficient to develop links with clubs that are high performing already. As it appears now, global development sits in the commercial department so the only objective will be making money. If there was a joined up strategy, it could work but it would take a big commitment. 
 

Or, as would be more effective, just having a very strong scouting network and identifying kids and snapping them up before they join Red Bull Salzburg, Borussia Dortmund, Ajax and the like. This last bit seems the big win here. Imagine Haaland signing for us instead of Salzburg, and we really should be able to compete in that space. 

[nta786]

5 hours ago, NewYorkSaint said:

There's a third part that I haven't heard talked about but I hope they will implement: create half a dozen academies around the world and become known as the club that can take a player from the streets of Africa or Asia or South America right to the premier league. That will further help create a global fanbase and boost the long-term financial viability of the club.

Semmens is a terrific CEO. I'm delighted they're anchoring their strategy around him and his vision. 

I'd very much like someone who can exploit that 3rd part. Considering there is over 2+ billion Indian and Chinese folk, it always amazes me that there isn't at least 1 PL level footballer in there!

Unearthing one might boost the club enormously, though I'd like to know how much our presence increased in China under Gao's ownership. 

[Saint-Reece]

1 hour ago, whelk said:

Reading the Athletic article makes me even more confident we have decent owners. Seems Kat’s man on the board, Bogli was key to us not accepting any old bid from interest of 24 potentials 

assume only works if you have subscription

https://theathletic.com/3054504/2022/01/07/better-late-than-never-two-years-and-24-unsuccessful-buyers-later-southampton-have-finally-been-sold/?source=user_shared_article

 

 

Thanks for that Whelk. I was thinking who the former player could be that suggested Gerard Lopez to the club, immediate thought was Fonte?

Very glad that we did not have a leveraged buyout - this article also highlights how many cowboys there are out there and how it's amazing that some of them end up succeeding in a purchase (al Faraj at Pompey springs to mind!)

[Badger]

2 hours ago, whelk said:

Reading the Athletic article makes me even more confident we have decent owners. Seems Kat’s man on the board, Bogli was key to us not accepting any old bid from interest of 24 potentials 

assume only works if you have subscription

https://theathletic.com/3054504/2022/01/07/better-late-than-never-two-years-and-24-unsuccessful-buyers-later-southampton-have-finally-been-sold/?source=user_shared_article

 

 

Any chance of cut pasting this on here ?

[Wurzel]

2 hours ago, whelk said:

Reading the Athletic article makes me even more confident we have decent owners. Seems Kat’s man on the board, Bogli was key to us not accepting any old bid from interest of 24 potentials 

assume only works if you have subscription

https://theathletic.com/3054504/2022/01/07/better-late-than-never-two-years-and-24-unsuccessful-buyers-later-southampton-have-finally-been-sold/?source=user_shared_article

 

 

The more I read about this deal the more the criticisms of Katharina from certain fans seem wide of the mark. Not even heard of Bogli before but he obviously represents her and/or acts on her instructions

Not sure how her deal with Gao came to fruition, I would guess it didn't turn out how she hoped but at least he took no money out of the club. This time she, with her veto , has ensured the deal was a cash purchase, no threat to the clubs security whilst rejecting other , probably higher,  offers. She could have insisted a buyer purchased her share as well, took the cash and ran, but she has put the future of the club first. There's a good chance her 20% will be worth even more in the future, and she probably doesn't need the money,  but she has done us a big favour right now. I'm guessing, but I'd imagine without her Gao would have been happy to take the first offer that met his price whether it benefited the club or not.

My only concern is that under the new deal her 20% no longer has a veto, so she has no control over the future of the club, but then again everything I've read so far about the new owners makes me think the future is not going to be a problem.

Getting happier about this take over by the day.

[rallyboy]

Very interesting to see Ankersen explaining his philosophy, the scathing Newcastle analysis was particularly relevant to our own situation with Puel - and great to see that the new man plays the harp.

 

[whelk]

13 minutes ago, Badger said:

Any chance of cut pasting this on here ?

Sorry mate on phone and not easy to do. Maybe someone on a pc can copy and paste.

[Badger]

4 minutes ago, rallyboy said:

Very interesting to see Ankersen explaining his philosophy, the scathing Newcastle analysis was particularly relevant to our own situation with Puel - and great to see that the new man plays the harp.

 

end of season party sorted then with his harp and Ralph on the piano for a good old sing-song.

Just don't let Shane Long write the words or sing.

[Saint86]

2 hours ago, whelk said:

Reading the Athletic article makes me even more confident we have decent owners. Seems Kat’s man on the board, Bogli was key to us not accepting any old bid from interest of 24 potentials 

assume only works if you have subscription

https://theathletic.com/3054504/2022/01/07/better-late-than-never-two-years-and-24-unsuccessful-buyers-later-southampton-have-finally-been-sold/?source=user_shared_article

 

 

I would say we owe Kat a significant amount for allowing Semmens to find the right buyer tbh. I know she gets a lot of stick - but ultimately she's done the right thing for us here. Makes up for Gao. Telling that she's handed over her veto as part of the takeover as well.

[Turkish]

35 minutes ago, Badger said:

Any chance of cut pasting this on here ?

here you go hun x

 

Better late than never’: Two years and 24 unsuccessful buyers later, Southampton have finally been sold

Dan Sheldon 5h ago 9 

At what point do you say, “Enough is enough”?

That must have been a thought going through the minds of those involved in trying to sell Southampton Football Club, be it club employees or intermediaries attempting to thrash out a deal.

For nearly two years, potential buyers expressed interest but then walked away due to economic uncertainty, the global pandemic, the threat of a European Super League and a host of other reasons.

It should be said there was also an element of Southampton being picky in terms of who they were sold to, ensuring the eventual purchasers would have a plan in place should they acquire Gao Jisheng’s 80 per cent majority shareholding. Many prospective owners were spurned because of this.

The uncertainty looked as if it would continue into 2022 until Sport Republic, a company backed by Dragan Solak and co-owned by Henrik Kraft and Rasmus Ankersen, entered the picture late last year and left the other interested parties in their wake. 

Their deal to buy Gao’s stake was officially announced on Tuesday afternoon.

But how did Southampton get to this stage, and what did their search for a new majority shareholder entail?

The Athletic has reported on the process throughout the last 18 months and is led to believe around 25 different potential buyers presented themselves to the Premier League club.

It is thought about half of them managed to sit down with those involved in trying to sell Southampton, and of that figure, five or six were deemed to be serious.

So, what happened to the other half of their suitors?

---

A deal had been agreed with an American hotelier at the beginning of 2020. It is thought the only thing left to do was put pen to paper. But after reading posts on fans forum saintsweb the american billionaire decided Southampton was not the club for him with negative, moaning fans  — that prospective owner pulled out at the last minute. This meant the club moved back to square one and now had to confront starting their search again amid a global crisis.

Supporters will be familiar with Joseph DaGrosa’s intention to purchase Gao’s stake, with the American entering a period of exclusivity with Southampton towards the end of 2020.

While the specifics of that deal will remain bound by non-disclosure agreements, DaGrosa later told The Athletic he thought Gao was seeking too much money, especially when you consider the losses incurred because of COVID-19.

Those on the other side of the negotiating table stress they weren’t interested in a leveraged buyout.

Like Sport Republic, DaGrosa planned to start a multi-club model, with Southampton at its centre, through his Kapital Football Group.

Alan Pace’s ALK Capital group, which eventually purchased fellow Premier League club Burnley just over a year ago, also showed an interest in Southampton before opting to look elsewhere. There were, again, concerns about how the mooted takeover at St Mary’s was going to be funded.

It was clear from those representing the club that leveraging money against Southampton to purchase Gao’s 80 per cent share was an idea that wasn’t ever going to get off the ground.

Crucial to this stance was Rolf Bogli.

Bogli sits on the board at Southampton and is an advisor to Katharina Liebherr, the club’s now-minority shareholder having sold that 80 per cent to Gao in the summer of 2017. It is thought his involvement took a lot of heat off Martin Semmens, the chief executive, in terms of workload.

Due to Bogli’s background in banking, he had little time for potential buyers who did not have the required funds at their disposal.

 

Gao (left) bought his 80 per cent stake in Southampton for around £160m in 2017 (Photo: Getty Images)

French news reports in May 2021 suggested that Gerard Lopez, former owner of current French champions Lille and currently in charge at fellow Ligue 1 club Bordeaux, was willing to buy Gao’s stake. The Athletic is led to believe Lopez was recommended to the club by one of their former players.

However, there were concerns about his track record. This was another potential deal that didn’t even get off the ground.

In what was an incredibly serious and important process, there were times where those taking part in it could only see the funny side to a situation. 

One of these was when they sat down — via Zoom — with a prospective owner purporting to be a billionaire. When the checks and balances were carried out by intermediaries, it became apparent this figure wasn’t who he said he was. His office address turned out to be nothing more than a hut.

A common complaint was that certain investors felt they had a God-given right to buy the club.

One is thought to have introduced himself and said he wanted the deal complete within 24 hours despite not providing any proof of funds or offering any kind of insight into his plans for Southampton.

At times during the last 18-24 months, names were shared with the Premier League, who then warned of the misdemeanours of some individuals. Those potential owners were quickly discarded.

In light of fellow Premier League side Newcastle United’s Saudi Arabia-backed takeover three months ago, Southampton have also had their fair share of interest from the Middle East.

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Southampton eventually found a suitable buyer in Sport Republic.

There was an instant connection between both parties. A December meeting in Europe solidified each side’s intentions and a deal was concluded relatively quickly.

There was no media circus and news of their two-year hunt for new buyers ending until a handful of hours before Tuesday’s official announcement. It’s understood everything was completed around Christmas time, but there was a desire to wait until the new year to have a clean slate.

Those close to the lengthy and exhaustive process will be delighted it is finally over.

The focus has now shifted from finding a buyer to ensuring Sport Republic turns its exciting vision for a multi-club set-up into a successful reality.

It arrived late in the day, nearly two years after the deal with that American hotelier fell through, but those close to the situation will almost certainly be thinking it’s better late than never.

Edited 7 January, 2022 by Turkish

[SuperSAINT]

@Turkish is going to get told off for posting that!  

[The Left Back]

14 minutes ago, Turkish said:

A deal had been agreed with an American hotelier at the beginning of 2020. It is thought the only thing left to do was put pen to paper. But after reading posts on fans forum saintsweb the american billionaire decided Southampton was not the club for him with negative, moaning fans  — that prospective owner pulled out at the last minute.

 😂 Loving your tweak @Turkish