Opinion: Southampton takeover is cause for cautious optimism

The club has come a long way from the doors of decimation, which looked so certain to swing open – and Markus Liebherr’s contributions will not be forgotten.

Supporters have been no stranger to hearing about a ‘new era’ which has dawned on the St Mary’s outfit. Gao Jisheng’s arrival was no doubt greeted with the same headlines.

But this isn’t about Gao, for Saints have new owners which seek to follow a both famous and obscure model. I’m of the belief that there is much cause for cautious optimism, with the arrival of Sport Republic.

Read more 

• What does Sport Republic takeover mean for Hasenhuttl's future? Semmens explains
• What does multi-club network mean? - 'We're aware of other clubs that may join'
• Highs and lows of Gao Jisheng's Saints - a timeline chronicled

In the short term, yes, it improves the financial stability. But as Semmens has said, to Gao’s credit the club hasn’t faced fears of being unable to operate normally even in some of the more uniquely challenging times football has faced.

Former Saints owner Gao Jisheng

Despite everything COVID has thrown over nearly two years, not one staff member at Saints has lost their job as a result, the Saints Foundation has continued their work unaffected.

However, Gao had made clear that although he was ‘the father’ and Saints was his child, the club must live within its own means. The new owners are not ultra-wealthy oil tycoons with pockets deeper than the ocean trenches they dredge.

There is not going to be a well of resources available to Ralph Hasenhuttl overnight, but Saints have been surviving with nothing. Now, as Semmens puts it – “room for one or two more? Absolutely.”

What’s actually exciting is the model for the long term. The success of Red Bull and City Football Group in curating global multi-club networks will probably become more frequent in future, as the franchising-esque of the sport becomes more acceptable in the purist’s game.

Red Bull Leipzig have gone from formation to Champions League regulars in just over a decade (Pic: PA)

It’s not quite franchising though, I must stress. Saints’ operating board remains the same and independent of the three co-founders of Sport Republic – who do not have an active role in the club. You’re not going to wake up and find out the club is now called SR Southampton.

But Saints have been used to mid-table to bottom-half mediocrity for a few years of Gao, despite the launching platform that was there with an eight-placed Premier League finish and two years’ experience in the Europa League.

Something that sets the club out as a bit unique is probably not a bad thing, now.

Semmens’ comments on how the network would work and benefit Saints are interesting. A shared playbook between the clubs across the globe, to me, sounds just like the ‘Southampton way’.

Saints have been one of the sides giving their B team and academy a philosophy playbook of Hasenhuttl’s tactics to operate in game and seamlessly match the style of the senior side for years.

Saints' B team play with Hasenhuttl's playbook to ensure seamless transitions to the first-team (Pic: Stuart Martin)

In any global network, Saints would likely be the jewel in the crown and would benefit from talent transfer, just as the likes of Red Bull Leipzig have.

That, added to the promise of investment in early-stage sports technology companies which will then be used to be mutually beneficial.

Semmens has seemingly earned the trust of a vast majority of supporters that he would make a decision right for Saints when it came to sanctioning a takeover, by batting away a handful of potential investors over the last two years.

"Everyone at the club is grateful for allowing us time to find the right option and to turn away the wrong options - in football, those are there,” he said.

“A lot of wealth that can come into football clubs. It can be very unsettling and sometimes not have clear plans for the future.”

Katharina Liebherr keeps her 20% share, and I know that many of you perhaps don’t share these sentiments and for that I understand, but it seems fitting that something of Liebherr family legacy remains – maybe that’s the naivety in me.

Late Saints owner Markus Liebherr has been immortalised in the club's lore (Pic: PA)

Semmens also said that the first thing lead invester Dragan Solak asked was what work the Saints Foundation do and how he can help the city. It’s an easy soundbite and I’m not going to hang my hat on it, but it’s definitely better than not saying it at all.

The Serbian media mogul’s TV companies are already well acquainted with the Premier League and there were no issues with any of the three passing the league’s ‘fit and proper’ test.

As for Rasmus Ankersen, I think he makes it almost a shame that none of the three co-founders have a hands-on role in the club.

The Dane is the football man behind it all, with vast experience in performance analytics and data-driven development. A youth captain at FC Midtjylland before his career was ended by a knee injury, he later became a coach and then chairman.

Appointed co-director of football at Brentford in May 2015 and later joining the board, he helped to mastermind the Bees’ eventual Premier League promotion all while following a familiar model of regrettably selling your best players every season.

Brentford won promotion via the Championship playoffs (Pic: PA)

He left Brentford at the end of 2021 to start Sport Republic, and ultimately to begin this new era with Saints.

Of course, Sport Republic LTD was only listed as a company under a month ago and it’s very much in its infancy.

There is no guarantees and, as I’ve mentioned, there isn’t really an unlimited pool of wealth. It will still very much have to be successful in the traditional mediums.

Maybe we don’t see the expansion of this global network that is being teased. Maybe the fine margins in data just don’t edge in Saints’ favour.

But it is the turning of a new chapter and one that I hope will make for interesting reading.

As Semmens signed off: “We don't see today as a success because the success will come if and when we make this good, when we win games and when we take the club forward.”