Dragan Šolak, Serbian media magnate, founder of the United Group, the company within which cable operator SBB operates, is one of the new owners of the English Premier League club Southampton. confirmed that club.
Southampton said in a statement that the consortium will Sport Republic, an investment company in the entertainment and sports industry, whose main investor is Dragan Šolak, took over the controlling part owned by that club.
The details of the purchase agreement have not been disclosed, a Sky News announced earlier today that Šolak will pay 14 million pounds, which is about 100 billion dinars, for the control package of the club's shares, currently 14th in the Premier League table.
"I will cheer for Southampton with our new sails to sail towards the path of old successes," Ivan Golac, a former footballer of this club and a former player of Partizan, told the BBC in Serbian, reacting to the news.
This deal was concluded only a few months after it was announced in Serbia that the state-owned company Telekom Srbija bought the rights to television broadcasts of Premier League matches from the summer of 2022.
In the competition for TV rights, Telekom won the United Group, whose television channels have so far broadcast the matches of one of the strongest leagues in the world.
The Beta agency then announced that it was Telekom paid even 600 million euros to the Premier League for those rights for a six-year contract.
Telekom neither confirmed nor denied this amount.
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Southampton chief executive Martin Semmens said the club had found "the perfect solution".
"We have found partners with ambition for the future, but also with a clear understanding of what Southampton is and in which direction we need to go now," Semmens said.
A new era at #SaintsFC 😇 We can confirm that Sport Republic has completed the acquisition of a controlling stake in Southampton Football Club.
- Southampton FC (@SouthamptonFC) January 4, 2022
Sholak is for Southampton site stated that the club meets all the requirements that he and his partner team asked for from a sports organization.
"Southampton have an excellent management team, excellent talent development, talented footballers who play attractive football and a dedicated fan base.
"We are delighted to have completed this acquisition, which is the first step towards implementing our investment strategy. Southampton will be the foundation of the organization we plan to build," said Sholak.
Rasmus Ankersen, former director of football in Brentford, as well as Henrik Kraft, an investor from London, will also have part of the shares in the consortium that takes over Southampton.
The current owner of Southampton is Gao Yisheng, a Chinese businessman who bought 2017 percent of the shares in 80.
Who is Dragan Šolak?
Šolak is a co-owner of the United Group, a media consortium within which the operator SBB operates, as well as the media, including television stations N1, Sport Club, Nova S.
Members of the ruling coalition in Serbia, which consists of the Serbian Progressive Party, the Socialist Party of Serbia and several other smaller parties, often associate Šolak and Dragan Đilas, the leader of the opposition Party of Freedom and Justice, and accuse them of cooperation with the aim of taking over power in Serbia.
Aleksandar Vučić, leader of SNS and president of Serbia, once stated that "Šolak and Đilas want to destroy Telekom as a joint stock company".
"Đilas and Šolak have accounts outside the country, block them, Djilas and Šolak don't care if Serbia is bombed or not, Djilas and Šolak want to overthrow me," it read Vučić's statement at the beginning of November 2021.
In public appearances, government representatives call them i tycoons and tycoon politicians, accusing them of illegal acquisition of wealth.
No criminal charges were filed against Šolak and Đilas.
"Even though the tabloids persistently link Dragan Đilas and me, the only truth is that Dragan Đilas and I have never had, nor do we now have, joint business". it is stated in Šolak's announcement of 2018..
Đilas also denied it, stating that it was Solaka "seen once or twice in a lifetime".
In the official biography Dragan Šolak is said to have founded the United Group in 2000.
It is one of the largest media companies in the region, which also deals with marketing and telecommunications.
He was the executive director until 2008, when he was appointed chairman of the Board of Directors.
Today, they say, he is responsible for strategic management and leads the constant development of the company.
He was born in Kragujevac, where he was engaged in the trade of music rights.
In the early nineties, he founded VANS, a company for the production and distribution of films, but he soon moved to Ljubljana and then to Prague.
The company Cable distribution system (KDS) founded in 2000 in Kragujevac, in 2004 it grew into Serbianbroadband (SBB), and after a series of acquisitions in Slovenia and Croatia in 2012, the United Group was formed, writes Danas.
Part of the United Group company was then sold in 2013 to the American investment fund KKR, which was led by General David Patreus, the former director of the CIA.
KKR then sold United Group to a British fund in 2018 BC partners.
Today, Šolak lives in Geneva, and in addition to the Serbian one, he also has a Slovenian passport. He has two children, he says Today.
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"I hope the new owner will have an ear for the local children"
Ivan Golac, the Serbian coach and former Southampton star, said he was surprised by the news.
"I've talked about it in previous years, it's very nice when there is someone at the head of the club who understands and feels for the club," Golac told the BBC in Serbian.
He points out that things have changed drastically in the Premier League in the last few decades.
"What adorned English clubs before was that they had local people of authority in the boards, who were financially powerful".
Golac played for Southampton from 1978 to 1983 and from 1984 to 1986.
"When I played, the president of the club was Alan Woodward, a well-known lawyer. His word in the club carried a lot of weight, and the players and fans respected him immensely," he said.
In the mid-nineties, clubs from the English Premier League began to be bought by foreign businessmen.
"Until then, not only profit was important, but as the league developed, owners from China, Italy, Malaysia and other countries began to come.
"It seems to me that the feeling of belonging to the club and emotions have been lost a little."
Golac also recalled the resistance the American Glazer family encountered when they bought a controlling stake in Manchester United.
"The fans then put up a great resistance. And the late Malcolm Glazer never came to the stadium since he bought the club."
However, Golac believes that the fans will accept the new owners of Southampton if the results are good.
"Southampton has not been in the upper part of the Premier League table for years, and the fans wanted good football that is pleasing to the eye," believes Golac.
He says that Southampton is a family club that has managed to maintain at least part of its tradition to this day despite the globalization of the Premier League.
"I would like Southampton to go up.
"One of the problems is that managers changed frequently in the previous period.
"When I was playing, Lori McMenamy was the coach for 12 years."
Golac believes that it is very important for the club's new owners to keep one of Southampton's basic postulates - relying on talents from their own football school.
This club previously survived perfectly with its own children in the battle with the island's football giants, according to Golac.
"Southampton is, along with Newcastle, the best club in England for producing players.
"For example, Alan Shearer played for both clubs - he came of age at Southampton.
"There are, for example, Luke Shaw, Theo Walcott, Matt Leticier, Alex Oxlade Chamberlain and many others.
"I hope the new owner will have an ear for the local kids of the club in the future."
Golac adds that he does not expect that in the future, despite the new owners, Southampton will be able to compete financially with the elite of the Premier League.
"Manchester City has spent one and a half billion euros on players since the owners came from the Emirates.
"Being among the top four teams is very difficult, because the richest have more money.
"But money is not everything," he points out.
He will continue, says Golac, to closely follow the events in the club from the port in the south of England.
"I will cheer for Southampton, with our new sails, to sail towards the old ways of success".
Foreigners as club owners in the Premier League
For years, English clubs, especially those in the elite ranks, have been bought by various foreign consortia and companies.
Recently, London's West Ham was bought by Czech billionaire Danijel Kretinski.
A lot of dust was raised about the purchase of Newcastle, which went into the hands of a consortium from Saudi Arabia.
That decision caused violent reactions in the football world, because it is suspected that the Saudi royal family is behind that consortium and that allegedly some of its members are directly responsible for the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
By taking over Southampton, Šolak will not be the first from the Balkans to become the owner of one of the Premier League clubs.
Milan Mandarić, an American businessman of Serbian origin, was a long-term owner of several clubs around the world, including Portsmouth, Leicester and Sheffield Wednesday.
Dobrivoje Tanasijević, better known as Dan Tana, also originally from Serbia, in addition to Belgrade's Crvena zvezda, he had an official role in English Brentford.
He left the club in 2002.
The story of Southampton
Southampton is a football club from the city of the same name, located in the very south of England.
Dušan Tadić, captain of the Serbian national team, today a football player of the famous Ajax, played for them from 2014 to 2018.
The club was founded back in 1885 and is one of the founders of the Premier League.
Southampton footballers are called Saints, because they were founded by the church, play at St. Mary's Stadium, and perform in red and white jerseys.
In their long history, they have only one major trophy - the FA Cup, won in the 1975/1976 season.
Southampton is currently in 14th place in the current Premier League season.
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