Are Sport Republic About To Add Another Club To The Portfolio
When they took over Southampton FC, Rasmus Ankersen and his partners in Sport Direct made their intentions clear that they were looking to build a portfolio of football clubs and now they look set to make their second acquisition.
SPORT Republic are reportedly set to complete the acquisition of Turkish club Goztepe SK, based in Izmir the club also has departments in fencing, triathlon, handball, sailing, swimming, and windsurfing.
But early press reports seem unclear whether the purchase will be made by Sport Republic of Rasmus Ankersen himself.
That would not be strange as Ankersen had dual roles as Director of Football at Brentford whilst also being Chairman at FC Midtjylland in Denmark whom Saints fans will remember from knocking us out of the Europe League at the qualifying stage in 2015.
The season just ended has not been a good one for them and they finished 19th out of 20 in the Turkish Super league and will play in the 2nd tier next season.
They play at 20,000 capacity Gürsel Aksel Stadium which was only opened as recently as January 2020.
So what does this mean for Saints, firstly it perhaps indicates that Rasmus Ankerssen the CEO of Sprt Direct will not be as hands on as he was at Brentford where he was Director Of Football, of course he will oversee and have input, but it seems that he leaves the day to day stuff to the directors already in place.
Secondly it will perhaps be to Saints benefit if it is Sport Direct who do buy the club, having connections with clubs across the World would be an advantage in player development.
We will soon find out who is going to be the owner Ankersen personally or Sport Direct.
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