Saints struggle to adjust

Majority stakeholder Sport Republic has an office at Southampton’s training ground, Staplewood. Despite being relegated from the Premier League last season, the club remain the jewel in its multi-club model, and getting Southampton’s affairs in order is imperative to the broader operation. The owner has two other clubs — Turkish second-tier side Goztepe, purchased in August 2022, and Ligue 2 outfit Valenciennes, acquired in July this year.

Lead investor Dragan Solak, a Serbian telecoms billionaire, took out a £110million ($133.4m by today’s rates) loan to buy Southampton in December 2021. The loan was from Luxembourg-registered company Summer Invest Sarl, which is owned by Solak and is a majority shareholder in his telecom company United Group. This was unrelated to Southampton’s cash flow and the loan was not to be repaid out of club accounts.

Since then, however, Solak has regularly provided Southampton with cash injections, covering “general running costs” and essentially footing the bill for Sport Republic’s overhaul in infrastructure. In April, Solak sunk in a further £15m, taking his additional investment to £63m over seven months.

Seeing little bang for his buck, Solak intended to be more proactive in the decision-making this season after his first full year of owning the club ended in relegation and fallout off the pitch. As The Athletic reported in May, there had been a feeling from observers close to Solak and the United Group that the club had been “burning cash” in their operational costs, most notably in player and managerial recruitment. Solak, however, remains committed and he would continue to invest if financial fair play (FFP) regulations allowed.

Wasted money?

Over the summer, a whole matchday squad’s worth of players departed — either on loan or permanently — including seven of the 15 signings made last summer and in January. Wasted money has been a sore point for some staff since Southampton, as is often the case following relegation, made club-wide cuts and redundancies. There is an acknowledgement internally Southampton should have replaced outgoings with more players earlier,

Last season’s disastrous Premier League campaign has notably damaged members of the dressing room. As a consequence, adjusting to a different approach has proven difficult for some players — it is partly why, following their first setback against Sunderland in a heavy 5-0 defeat, the squad is yet to bounce back.

The protracted nature of player sales — even Ward-Prowse and Lavia started the season with Southampton — caused consternation among those players who wanted out, complicating Martin’s attempts to drive through his vision.

There is an acceptance that players have been making too many individual mistakes on transition, resulting in Southampton conceding 19 goals from just eight games — the league’s highest. An expected goal against (xGA) total of 14.2 suggests it is not as if luck is conspiring against them, either.

The sky is often darkest before the break of dawn, but the example of Stoke City shows what can happen to once solid top flight clubs. As my son-in-law and other friends are season ticket holders, I hope they bounce back soon.

It's no deal say Spurs insiders over Taiwanese takeover

Senior figures at Tottenham Hotspur insisted on Friday that they had not been informed of any deal to sell Daniel Levy’s stake in the club. A business group, Eight Sports Capital — which is said to include a billionaire Taiwanese financier — claimed that it had an agreement in place to buy a 24.99 per cent stake in ENIC, the club’s majority owners, from Levy, who owns 29.88 per cent. The Times has been told Ng Wing Fai and Brooklyn Earick form part of the group, having both been linked previously to potential takeovers of the Premier League club. The Taiwanese businessman, Richard Tsai, is also said to be part of the consortium. He is reportedly worth £7 billion. Last year Earick, the former DJ and tech entrepreneur, was part of an attempted £4.5 billion takeover, which was “unequivocally rejected” by Spurs. An ENIC spokesperson said: “We can confirm that neither ENIC nor THFC are aware of any sale by Daniel Levy’s Family Trust of its minority stake in ENIC, THFC’...

Spurs CEO attacks luxury training base

The Tottenham Hotspur chief executive Vinai Venkatesham has issued a withering assessment of the way the club was run under Daniel Levy, likening the state-of-the-art training centre to a five-star hotel rather than a centre of high performance. Venkatesham was appointed to his role in April 2025, having stepped down as chief executive at Arsenal the previous summer. However, he has said that some aspects of the club were “in a significantly worse state” than he expected. “Our training centre is amazing, one of the best, if not the best in the world,” Venkatesham told BBC Sport. “But when you look around, it looks more like a five-star hotel than it does a performance environment. That will change over the summer. I think there are many areas where the club hasn’t got the right level of expertise.” He explained that the football side of operations was the club’s main downfall when he arrived last year. [One Spurs fan wryly observed that it was like a water company sayi...

Fulham requires big funding from owner

After lengthy delays, Fulham’s shiny, new Riverside Stand has finally opened, creating “a unique Thameside destination with first class facilities for supporters and partners on match days, as well as for the wider community year-round”. This ambitious project has increased Craven Cottage’s capacity by around 4,000 to 29,600, while it has also taken advantage of the club’s fantastic location and wealthy catchment area by including two Michelin star restaurants, a rooftop swimming pool, corporate hospitality and event space, all benefiting from views of the Thames. Chief executive Alistair Mackintosh observed, “Fulham is the sort of club that can have a business class or first class and have fans that turn left on a plane.” Indeed, there is also an exclusive members club – with a football season ticket as an optional extra. It’s fair to say that “the times they are a-changing”, as this is a long way from the traditional pie and a pint. However, in a world where clubs face the tw...

The Political Economy of Football V2

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