A new narrative on Sports Republic?

[NewYorkSaint]

No doubt they've deserved a lot of the hostility expressed by the fanbase these past couple years.  They took some big risks - for example gambling on untested young managers who offered analytically smart strategies, and pushing a multi-club strategy that would have been cool if it had worked, but... it didn't.   Not to mention a kind of panicked recklessness in some of the player purchases, resulting in a bloated, unmanageable squad. 

And yet, I wonder if history will judge them a little differently. It's not like they've learned nothing from their mistakes. The appointment of Johannes Spors looks inspired at this point. The squad has trimmed and supplemented with genuinely spectacular talent (Scienza, Azaz, Peretz), and that strategy of backing untested, but super-smart young managers? Well, that too is looking pretty different now. 

They never pulled the purse strings tight shut. They've always retained their belief in Southampton's potential... and if things transpire the way they might in the rest of this season, that faith could finally get rewarded with a longer return to the big leagues.

So far all the plaudits for the current amazingness are going to Eckert and the players... But SR undoubtedly contributed.  Anyone willing to join me in giving them a tentative thumbs up? 

 

[trousers]

I'm happy to give them praise when they get stuff right and flack when they get stuff wrong... There's been plenty of both during their tenure...

[Zorba]

A broken clock and all that.

Too early to tell whether they’ve just got lucky with Spors and Eckert, we’ll have to wait and see what happens when they both get poached.

[hypochondriac]

19 minutes ago, trousers said:

I'm happy to give them praise when they get stuff right and flack when they get stuff wrong... There's been plenty of both during their tenure...

Yep. They deserve big credit for getting Spors and then letting him do things his way. They can say all sorts of guff and they have done. What matters is results and performances and on that score they have finally got it right after Will Still and the signings this year have largely been decent.

[Patrick Bateman]

19 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Yep. They deserve big credit for getting Spors and then letting him do things his way. They can say all sorts of guff and they have done. What matters is results and performances and on that score they have finally got it right after Will Still and the signings this year have largely been decent.

Agree. They are still on a PIP with me. They need to keep every single good player, get Eckert tied down on a long contract and seriously back this current team. If we don't go up, they need to pull out everything to secure the same players and coaching team, who should be good enough to get promoted automatically next season. 

[SambaMaverick]

The goal, which they clearly set out, was to get promoted. It's been a great turnaround with some good moves from SR/Sports, but it was mostly undoing their own missteps.

The job isn't done, but I'm sure they'll get their plaudits if it gets done.

[Saint_clark]

2 hours ago, SambaMaverick said:

The goal, which they clearly set out, was to get promoted. It's been a great turnaround with some good moves from SR/Sports, but it was mostly undoing their own missteps.

The job isn't done, but I'm sure they'll get their plaudits if it gets done.

Their goal at the end of 5 years was to be in the Prem as stated by Russell Martin after promotion, and we're in year 3 of that plan now. Part of me hopes we don't go up through the playoffs this year, as if we can keep this side together for one more year I reckon we'll finally win a league.

[St. Ciervo]

It depends on what they can keep together and add this summer. This site will melt down if Baz is a projected starter at any point.

[Doctoroncall]

If you’re talking about SR then the abject failure of Valenciennes counts against them but Goztepe is a plus with promotion, just outside the Euro places this season. Saints worst points relegation is also a big failure. 
 

Only seen one positive player intra-transfer from the group - Matsuki, plenty of negatives. 

[Tamesaint]

5 hours ago, Patrick Bateman said:

Agree. They are still on a PIP with me. They need to keep every single good player, get Eckert tied down on a long contract and seriously back this current team. If we don't go up, they need to pull out everything to secure the same players and coaching team, who should be good enough to get promoted automatically next season. 

Let's wait until 1 September and decide then. If there is no FA cup, we are still in the Championship and our squad has been picked apart by the vultures then there will be little praise from me. 

[StrangelyBrown]

When we're back to being comfortably mid table in the premier league then Sports Republic will have achieved nothing (we were 14th mid way through the season when they first came in). Until then no matter how you look at it they have taken us backwards with their "strategy" and deserve all the criticism that comes with it.

[hypochondriac]

6 hours ago, Patrick Bateman said:

Agree. They are still on a PIP with me. They need to keep every single good player, get Eckert tied down on a long contract and seriously back this current team. If we don't go up, they need to pull out everything to secure the same players and coaching team, who should be good enough to get promoted automatically next season. 

If we don't go up we will inevitably lose players but we should still have enough about us to do a Leeds. THB, Scienza, charles and Jander will likely go as a minimum. Possibility we don't sign Peretz either. 

New gk 

Bree Stephens wood/new signing Manning 

Downes Bragg 

Matsuki Azaz new signing 

Stewart/Larin 

Is still a decent team and with a couple of smart additions should see us in the hunt for promotion.

[Oisin]

It’s like giving Trump credit for the ceasefire with a prospect of reopening the straits. There was no war and a fully functioning strait before.

We were an established premier league side; we’re not, are odds against being next year (though odds improving) and if we do go up have a huge job in building a competitive squad, just to get back to where we were.

They’ve been a disaster. Spors looks a good appointment, January was a good window (their first that hasn’t been a total cluster) and they got lucky with Eckert - if we hadn’t reacted against O’Neil or somehow held on against QPR etc we could be floundering under another Jo es or Juric quite conceivably.

I am delighted, thrilled and really optimistic about the end of this season, but am a very long way from rethinking my view of SR as being an utter shambles.

[Saint Fan CaM]

Like most comments, I’m pleased with Eckhert and the results he’s brought about to date, but let’s not forget the shambles that existed prior to his appointment to the 1st team, both in terms of management, coaching and squad. 

Now they’ve put the club back on an even keel the hard work really begins because they have to consolidate and build - that’s much harder, especially if we do somehow manage to get promoted. It Could be argued that the squad is still not ready for a return to the Prem with too many mediocre players surviving the last debacle.

In short the jury is still out, but so far so good.

Edited 11 hours ago by Saint Fan CaM
Typo

[Willo of Whiteley]

I’m sure this’ll be merged in the ST thread soon, but let’s not gloss over this - Sport Republic have been a disaster.

The headlines a simple:
- 14th when they took over and a sustainable and desirable Premier League team.
- Two relegations within three of their four full seasons.
- The second worst Premier League finish in history, and the worst for us.

But they’ve invested money!
Let’s analyse that.

- They spent recklessly in their first full season, Romeo Lavia was the only success.
- They changed how they scout players from effectively scouts to a digital database that analyses them. This crop of intelligence scouted us gems such as Sekou Mara and Armel Bella-Kotchap.
- The wastefulness of their spending has seen a squad change more times, almost as much as Watford change managers.

Ah, the managers, there’s been some success there.
Bollocks…

Ralph Hassenhutl - excellent with Martin Semmens and his coaching team and not much money, good getting the best out of players. Probably not given any real say in transfers in SR first summer. Sacked, fail.
Nathan Jones - clown from a Welsh mining village who married a nice girl, made more enemies in as short a space of time as a dictator would. Sacked, the first of the glorious “Black Box Data Driven Appointments”. Sacked, fail.
Ruben Selles - damage limitation, appointed after a fluke win and subsequently led us downwards at the same time as Unai Emery was appointed by Villa. Sacked, fail.
Russell Martin - good appointment, promotion, but boring football at times, stubbornness cost him, naivety in the transfer window, and  should’ve done a lot better with the squad at his disposal. Sacked, but a pass.
Ivan Juric - heavy metal football? Heavy metal bullshit. Who’d have thought bringing in a defensive manager when you’re bottom of the league would keep you up? SR did. Sacked. Fail.
Will Still - Football Manager enthusiast, first big gig but stubbornness, lack of direction and leadership cost him massively. Big, big mistake from SR that will now potentially cost us promotion in what is a very weak Championship. Sacked, fail.
Now Tonda Eckhart - we all had low expectations, but let’s not beat around the bush, he was brought in for the U21’s, not the first team, and fair play to him for working wonders with the resources he’s got.

But surely SR have done well in other avenues?
Ah, ffs…

Goztepe, promotion holding their own and seemingly the only team benefitting from the glorious “multi-club model”. Albeit in the Turkish league they’ve done ok.

Valenciennes, “baby are you down” as the song goes, because that’s the way they’re heading too, and have been since the takeover. Chopping and changing of managers.

The ONLY positives I’ll give SR is the commercial side, so Level One, The Dell Bar, the matchday atmosphere outside the ground, all excellent. But that’s it.

Let’s not gloss over all this, SR get little backing from me until we’re at least back where we started when they took over.

[malcolm waldron]

Difficult to argue with those that are saying only when we get back to where we were when they came in can we even begin to think about praising them.

I was thinking earlier (funnily enough before reading this thread) about our recent managerial appointments.  If I'm right out of the 5 (yes 5!) in the last 3 years before super Tond,  one is currently operating in the lower reaches of the Championship, and the other four are unemployed.   Yes there's some context behind that stat, but it says a lot about Sport Republic's strategic thinking and planning to me at least.   

[CB Fry]

5 hours ago, Saint_clark said:

Their goal at the end of 5 years was to be in the Prem as stated by Russell Martin after promotion, and we're in year 3 of that plan now. Part of me hopes we don't go up through the playoffs this year, as if we can keep this side together for one more year I reckon we'll finally win a league.

Youre writing that as if we weren't in the Premier League when they bought us in the first place.

They're not doing us some massive favour by having a five year plan to be in the Premier League.

Edited 10 hours ago by CB Fry

[SouSaint]

5 hours ago, Saint_clark said:

Their goal at the end of 5 years was to be in the Prem as stated by Russell Martin after promotion, and we're in year 3 of that plan now. Part of me hopes we don't go up through the playoffs this year, as if we can keep this side together for one more year I reckon we'll finally win a league.

The club accounts show that this will be very difficult. 

[Turkish]

6 minutes ago, SouSaint said:

The club accounts show that this will be very difficult. 

Yep going to be very hard to keep some of these players. Scienza and Charles already being linked with Premier league clubs, Jander with the German league and THB will no doubt get a move if we dont go up. As we are in debt and a self proclaimed player trading club if we get a decent offer for them we'll take it. Much as i'd love us to win the league we'll just have to get relegated again to have a go at that.

[Colinjb]

See where we are in a year's time. Failure to get promotion could be devastating.

[Turkish]

It would be very in keeping with Saints heroic failure history to get to the FA Cup Final and Play off final and lose both.

[DellBlockH]

Lots of people saying we were in the Premier League when they took over. We were. But were we going to stay there? People back then were complaining about the lack of investment and general ambition under Gao. Obviously, we went down under SR. But who's to say things might have been even worse if we hadn't had an owner prepared to risk losing big money in an effort to get us back up and staying there? There was no sign that Gao had either the means or the inclination to invest any more. 

Imponderables, of course. We may have stayed up and gone from strength to strength without SR being involved. 

[StrangelyBrown]

1 hour ago, DellBlockH said:

Lots of people saying we were in the Premier League when they took over. We were. But were we going to stay there?

It's a good point, we had a weak squad and were over performing.

SRs first move (summer 2022) was to get rid of the manager who had us over performing and make the squad significantly worse.

We'll never know if we would have stayed up with a different set of owners, but I'm pretty sure no one would have done as badly in that first full premier league season as SR.

[Saint_clark]

5 hours ago, CB Fry said:

Youre writing that as if we weren't in the Premier League when they bought us in the first place.

They're not doing us some massive favour by having a five year plan to be in the Premier League.

Err no I'm not, I said when Martin revealed the information that I hated it as it was almost as if he was covering himself before the Prem season had even begun ("well I know we went down but look, we have another 3 years to be in the Prem"). 

 

It's also why I'm still convinced they would have kept Martin if we'd gone down if it wasn't for how toxic the atmosphere became, and the comments they made after the fact about having no other choice feeds into that. 

Don't project a motivation for my post that isn't there. I'm simply saying that in their eyes, promotion this season isn't a red line target - they still see us as having two more seasons before their target point of being in the Prem.

[Miltonaggro]

Perhaps this is a thread for the end of the season. Winning the cup is unlikely given the sides left in it, but promotion looks achievable if we maintain this remarkable momentum. Were that to happen the board need to move heaven and earth to retain Eckhert and the spine of this side, something that appears very alien to them. Do that, and a majority of supporters will give them some slack in terms of their stated goal at takeover, the club finishing in the top half of the top flight on a regular basis. This is the most ‘connected’ the team and fans have been since Koeman, and I sincerely hope that SR avoid breaking that. 

[Midfield_General]

12 hours ago, Saint_clark said:

Their goal at the end of 5 years was to be in the Prem as stated by Russell Martin after promotion, and we're in year 3 of that plan now. Part of me hopes we don't go up through the playoffs this year, as if we can keep this side together for one more year I reckon we'll finally win a league.

That’s the problem though - we won’t. 

We’ll almost certainly lose Peretz, Larin, THB and Charles, and probably Scienza as well if someone makes a decent offer and the most recent accounts are to be believed. I think it’s highly likely that Eckert will get poached too if we don’t go up. 

Then we’re back to the tombola of having to find a new manager, half a team, and hoping they all gel over the short space of one season, with less money. Does Spors stick around too, and even if he does, can he find another bunch of affordable gems or will it be more Damion Downs / Jelert / Roerslevs? Who knows. It’s very, very risky. 

We need to go up this season or we risk going back to square one. 

[USaintA]

Doing a wonderful job. I've never doubted them.

[S-Clarke]

It's totally fair to give them a thumbs up when things go well, but equally the 'boot' when things are pretty bad. Let's be fair - based on the whole bigger picture, they have been terrible owners for us. 

They have wasted a lot of money and made stacks of managerial mistakes. Relegated us twice. They really don't have any credit in the bank.

I think they deserve credit for shaking things up in the summer and in January, but we need another couple of years of 'good' decisions from them if they are to erase all of their mistakes from the past.

Edited 1 hour ago by S-Clarke

[Hodgey]

Yeah - still not convinced - the casebook against

- failed to get Ralph the striker he wanted instead giving him a load of kids who had played little/zero professional football. Forced an assistant manager on him (Selles) and arguably asked him to change tactics (suddenly trying 5 at the back)

- Appointed Nathan Jones (with the only other option they considered Juric)

- Gave up and appointed Selles

- spent £12m on another Man City youngster when went down (yes he’s now starting to look the part, but 2 seasons later - did nothing that season)

- Decided that we didn’t need a DOF in the premier league - instead splitting that vital role between 3 people with no football ability

- Bought the forward line of the team who just went down miserably, and a load of other clearly not good enough players aside from a gk to keep the score down

- waited to long to remove Russ when it was clear that his plan A would never work and total refusal for any plan B

- appointed Juric (remember - they had already decided this bloke was worse than Jones)

- took a massive gamble in appointing Will Still

- Decided that we didn’t need loan players despite literally every recent successful Championship club having them (including us) as they are too expensive to buy after

- yes they put money in, but we lost £50m last year and notably the money they have loaned us has interest (most owners give it interest free)

Some of the above you can claim is down to learning etc, but for me there are some astonishingly arrogant ‘we know best, look how clever we are’ decisions. Basically our position is totally self inflicted by SR and as others mention they have a way yet just to get to par. 

[NewYorkSaint]

I asked my friend Claude, and looks like she agrees with the majority opinion here...    Nonetheless I predict that if they pull off promotion, and/or an FA cup win, the tide of opinion will change quite rapidly...  No one should be judged solely by their worst mistakes -- unless they never learn from them.  Over to Claude...

 

Sport Republic: A Performance Assessment

Background: Sport Republic is a British sports investment firm founded by Rasmus Ankersen and Henrik Kraft, financed by lead investor Dragan Šolak. Wikipedia Ankersen was previously instrumental at Brentford, serving as Co-Director of Football from 2015–2021 and overseeing their promotion to the Premier League for the first time in 74 years. Southampton Football Club The pitch was compelling: apply Brentford's data-driven, value-finding model across a multi-club portfolio.

The Portfolio — Club by Club

Southampton (acquired January 2022, 80% stake): This is the flagship and where the verdict is harshest. Their first full season of ownership ended in relegation from the Premier League in May 2023. Wikipedia They bounced back through the Championship playoffs in 2024, but were effectively relegated from the Premier League for the second time under Sport Republic on 6 April 2025 with seven games remaining, becoming the earliest team to suffer relegation in Premier League history. Wikipedia Now back in the Championship for 2025–26, they currently sit 6th, in the playoff places, with 17 wins, 12 draws, and 10 losses from 39 games. FootyStats But even that has been turbulent — Will Still was appointed as manager before the season, then sacked after sixteen games with a 25% win ratio, after which Tonda Eckert, the U21 coach, was appointed as head coach. Wikipedia

The managerial churn has been extraordinary. Since Sport Republic took over, Southampton have gone through Hasenhüttl, Nathan Jones, Rubén Sellés, Russell Martin, Ivan Jurić, Will Still, and now Eckert — seven managers in roughly three and a half years.

According to fan analysis, Southampton's Premier League record under Sport Republic stands at: Played 77, Won 12, Drawn 14, Lost 51. Medium That is a catastrophic win rate of roughly 16%. Total spending has exceeded £241 million in recent seasons Medium, making the return on investment truly dire.

Göztepe (acquired August 2022, 70% stake): This is actually the bright spot. The club were promoted to the Süper Lig at the end of the 2023–24 season and finished eighth in 2024–25. Wikipedia This season they're doing even better — Göztepe currently sits in fifth place with 46 points from 27 matches, having conceded only 20 goals, matching Galatasaray as the least scored-against teams in the league. Fakta For a newly promoted club, that's a genuinely impressive trajectory.

Valenciennes (acquired July 2023): A disaster. The club were relegated to the Championnat National (French third tier) at the end of the 2023–24 season Wikipedia, just one season after Sport Republic took control.

Key Criticisms

Managerial decision-making is the most damning indictment. The problem hasn't been that they've been making changes; the problem is the way in which these changes have been made. Football365 The Nathan Jones appointment was widely panned from day one — bringing in a direct, aggressive coach to manage a squad built for possession football. They repeated the same error with Ivan Jurić, who also plays fundamentally different football from what the squad was assembled for. Medium

The gap between philosophy and execution is stark. They talk about data, analytics, and the "Brentford model," but data is usually only as good as the people using it, and in a modern football club that requires all parts of the operation to be functioning as they should. Football365 Brentford succeeded because the entire operation was aligned. At Southampton, there have been constant internal tensions and high staff turnover.

Fan relationship has broken down almost completely. According to fan pundits, the relationship between the owners and the fans is "totally broken," with supporters having "no faith" in the ownership to make the right decisions. FootballLeagueWorld

What They've Done Right

To be fair, a few things deserve acknowledgment. Financially, Southampton have been reset rather than dismantled — no dividends were extracted, the wage bill was responsibly cut after relegation, and infrastructure investment has continued at St Mary's. Saints Marching They've invested over £200 million into the club. GRV Media The money has been there — it has just been poorly deployed. And as noted, Göztepe's rise from the Turkish second tier to a top-five Süper Lig position is a legitimate success story.

Grading Relative to Other Ambitious Multi-Club Owners

I'd place Sport Republic in the D+ to C- range — toward the bottom of the "ambitious but underperforming" tier. Here's how I'd frame the spectrum:

The gold standard (A/A+): City Football Group (Manchester City), who built a global empire with sustained on-pitch dominance. Red Bull's network (Salzburg/Leipzig) is another model of coherent, aligned execution.

Solid performers (B/B+): Brighton's Tony Bloom, who mirrors what Ankersen says he wants to do — data-driven recruitment, clear identity, patience — but actually executes it. Atalanta's ownership model in Serie A is similar.

Mixed bags (C+/B-): 777 Partners (before their collapse), Pozzo family (Watford/Udinese/Granada) — flashes of success mixed with instability and relegations. INEOS at Nice/Manchester United are still early in their story.

Where Sport Republic sits (D+/C-): They have ambition, investment capital, and a credible theoretical framework. But the execution has been poor to dismal at the flagship club. Two Premier League relegations in three years, with record-early relegation the second time, is almost unprecedented for an ownership group that was actively spending. The Göztepe success prevents them from being a complete failure, and the financial stewardship has been responsible rather than extractive. But the core promise — applying Brentford-style intelligence to a bigger platform — has simply not materialized at Southampton.

Below them (D/F): Truly destructive owners like the Oystons at Blackpool, Hicks & Gillett at Liverpool, or recent examples like Reading's Dai Yongge where clubs face existential financial threats.

The fundamental problem is that Sport Republic tried to replicate the Brentford model without recognizing that Brentford's success depended on patience, alignment, and cultural buy-in across the entire organization — not just clever data. At Southampton, they've lurched from one approach to another, undermining their own signings with incompatible managerial appointments, and have burned through goodwill at an alarming rate. The question now is whether the current Championship campaign — and the promising FA Cup run — represents a genuine turning point or merely another cycle of brief optimism before the next collapse.