Southampton: 'Mixed bag' Sport Republic claim made - but Dragan Solak hope given | OneFootball

The Southampton owners have now been running the club since 2022 and their time in charge has seen both good and bad for Saints fans.

It's now been four and a half years since Sport Republic took control of Southampton, and the reaction their involvement with the club remains mixed.

With fallout from the Spygate scandal not yet fully resolved, this has been a difficult couple of months for Southampton. Not only did the club miss out on the possibility of a quick return to the Premier League as a result of this story, but they also picked up a four-point deduction for next season and a considerable amount of reputational damage along the way.

The club chairman Dragan Solak has spoken bullishly about his support for head coach Tonda Eckert, who was at the centre of this drama, but this story drew fresh attention to the Saints' ownership by Sport Republic, who took ownership of the club at the start of 2022.

Sport Republic was set up by Rasmus Ankersen, who was previously director of football at Brentford, and Henrik Kraft, formerly a partner at private equity firm KKR, with Dragan Šolak, the owner of a Serbia media company, as their lead investor.

Their intention was to position Southampton at the heart of a multi-club ownership model, and they have since also bought controlling shares in the Turkish club Göztepe, the French club Valenciennes and the Malian academy project Mali Coura.

"Some promise, moving forward" - Sport Republic's ownership of Southampton appraised

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With Southampton now having been under the ownership of Sport Republic for four and a half years, Football League World have spoken to our Saints fan pundit Louis Harris for his appraisal of how they've been getting on. Louis considers their time in charge of the club to have been a mixture of good and bad: "It's been a very mixed bag since Sport Republic took over nearly four years ago, with promises of an exciting new future and being the golden child of a Sport Republic multi-club system."

Louis can clearly see some of the mistakes made by those running the club: "There's no doubt that when they took over they had the best intentions for the club, and it seemed that all footballing decisions were being made by Rasmus Ankersen and Henrik Kraft. However, they soon proved that they were trying to be too clever for their own good. The sacking of Hassenhuttl and appointing Jones was a prime example of them being too adventurous and too clever for their own good."

But he does also credit them for having seen the error of their ways and making changes to the way the club is run on a day-to-day basis: "Since they realised that what they were doing wasn't working, Kraft and Ankersen have stepped back. Dragan Solak has stepped in as chairman in more of a hands-on role. He's since appointed Johannes Spors, it's definitely seemed that there's been more positive results."

Louis can see that the club has had a dip since Sport Republic took ownership of the club: "Ultimately, you can try and sugarcoat their intentions as much as you want in terms of what they want to achieve, but you can't hide away from the fact they've taken a stable Premier League club and in four years overseen two relegations."

Overall, though, the improvements that he's seen over the last couple of years allow him to give Sport Republic a conditional pass on the way they've managed Southampton since they bought into the club: "If you'd asked me at the end of the 2024-25 season whether they'd be the right owners to take the club forward, it would have been an outright no. However, there have been improvements within the club since and there is some promise, moving forward. So I'm happy, as long as we have another season like the last one, but we'll see."

Sport Republic's Spygate reponse will be tested if the FA charges Tonda Eckert

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At the time that Sport Republic bought into Southampton at the start of 2023, the club was a well-established Premier League club, with ten years of unbroken top-flight service under their belts. But since then, the club's fortunes have been considerably more mixed. Their four seasons have seen them finish bottom of the Premier League twice and 4th in the Championship twice as well.

The first time they were relegated, promotion back was achieved via the play-offs, Three defeats in their final four League matches of the season ended their hopes of returning automatically, but wins against West Bromwich Albion in a two-legged semi-final and against Leeds United at Wembley were enough to secure a quick return.

The 2024-25 season, however, was a calamity for the club. Southampton finished the Premier League season with just 12 points and were relegated straight back. And this time, there was no quick return. Despite having finished their Championship season in fourth place and beating Middlesbrough over two legs in their play-off semi-final, the Saints were expelled from the play-offs over the Spygate scandal and docked four points which will be applied at the start of the 2026-27 season.

The reaction of Sport Republic has been bullish, with Dragan Solak having said that he intends to keep hold of head coach Tonda Eckert even if Eckert is handed a ban by the Football Association because of Spygate. There has been no confirmation of whether the FA are to press charges on top of the punishment levied against the club by the EFL's independent commission, so it remains to be seen whether Solak's dedication to his head coach will be tested by an FA ban.

But the ultimate point made by FLW's Saints correspondent remains undiminished. Southampton spent much of the 2010s in the top half of the Premier League as a result of canny buying and selling in the transfer market, with four successive top eight finishes and the return of European football after an absence of more than a decade. Until the club are back established in the Premier League and not in danger of relegation back to the EFL, it's difficult to see them as an improvement on their predecessors at St Mary's.