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.
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