Southampton owner Dragan Solak has made his stance on selling the club very clear as the beginning of the summer transfer window starts to heat up.

The Saints were relegated from the Premier League in 2024/25 and were dangerously close to beating Derby County’s record-low points tally of 11.

But after enduring a miserable campaign, supporters are feeling a sense of excitement ahead of the Championship season kicking off, with the appointment of Will Still fuelling their enthusiasm.

However, despite boasting financial power over the majority of the division, Southampton have a huge wage issue that needs resolving for the club to have a brighter future.

Reports also emerged that Dragan Solak was willing to sell the club, with the Serbian businessman now sharing a clear answer to those claims.

Dragan Solak has no plans to sell Southampton

Solak’s company, Sport Republic, acquired a majority stake in Southampton at the start of 2022. Since then, the South Coasters have experienced two relegations, one promotion and five permanent managers.

The downs significantly outweigh the ups in that regard, and of course, that has prompted negativity from the fans.

That being said, the supporters have been urged to stick with Sport Republic for another year after appointing Still, and they may also have no choice in the matter either way.

In an interview with BBC Sport, Solak said he had no intention of selling Southampton but he is open to the idea of further investment.

“I have never had any plans of selling the club,” Solak said. “We have quite a few very exciting projects,” the 60-year-old revealed.

“I might invite some partners to join me if and when we are promoted to the Premier League, because I think we’ll need maybe more [investment].

“But selling was never on my mind, I was thinking much more about this 10-year project of how to develop the club commercially and financially so it is more robust and less dependent on TV rights deals.”

Solak makes surprise Russell Martin admission

The 2024/25 campaign was one of the worst in the club’s recent history, as many supporters began to turn on the ownership group.

Russell Martin was in charge of the club after winning promotion back to the Premier League last year, though he was sacked in the middle of December following a defeat against Tottenham.

Martin, who recently joined Rangers as manager, departed St Mary’s with the club bottom of the table and nine points adrift of safety.

Yet, Solak says the Scotsman would have still been in charge of Southampton if it wasn’t for bad luck, suggesting VAR denied the Saints eight points.

“I really believe he was absolutely, fundamentally behind his idea of football and that is not easy in an environment like the Premier League that is so competitive,” Solak said.

“But to give him credit we were quite unlucky, I don’t even know how to characterise some of the VAR decisions that we had – but in my opinion VAR took eight points off Russell’s team.

“If he had those eight points more in December I think he would probably manage the team through the whole season.

“I’m not saying we would stay in the league but we would have [had] a much more competitive run and Russell would definitely still be leading the team.”

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