Special Juan can see long-term vision after buying 20% of club
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Stewart Donald doesn’t envisage any problems with Juan Sartori securing Football League approval for his 20 per cent stake in Sunderland.
The Uruguayan businessman, who has paid £3million for a 20 per cent share, is currently going through the EFL Owners’ and Directors’ test.
Multi-millionaire Sartori spent time in Sunderland earlier this week.
And Donald says Sartori was “very excited” by the vision put to him by the Sunderland owner and long-term Donald says Sartori believes Sunderland has the potential to be a “top 20 European club”, with ambitions of one day possibly competing with the likes of Roman Abramovich or Sheikh Mansour.
For now, that is a long way off and the first priority for Sunderland is to secure promotion back to the Championship.
Donald, who is exploring the possibility of a short-term loan as a contingency plan to cover unexpected legal liabilities, is looking forward to having Sartori – and his wealth of contacts – on board.
Donald, speaking to A Love Supreme, said: “Juan Sartori is currently going through the EFL process and there is no reason at all for him not to pass, he has no issues and is extremely well capitalised.
“He will take a 20% stake, so that will leave me with 74%, Charlie [Methven] with 6% and Juan with 20%.
“At this stage we don’t need his capital, as a League One club as long as the plan works we don’t need that level of investment.
“But should we get promoted then he comes along with an awful lot of long term benefits such as his connections with Monaco, his links with South American players which could boost our academy and we’ll be able to lean on his European connections as well.
“From a business perspective, he’s connected to an awful lot of wealthy people who like sport.
“If we reach a certain level he can really help us kick on, it’s important we get him onside with the vision as quickly as possible.
“I’ve already sold him my version of it and he’s aligned to that and when he came he was very excited in what he saw and he said that Sunderland could be a top 20 European club in the future.
“If we can sustain the club and enthuse him and his contacts, then it will be the right sort of benefit to the football club and he will want to compete at a higher level.
“If we can get his father-inlaw onside and his other contacts, we will hope to compete with a Roman Abramovich or Sheikh Mansour.
“It might not work out that way but at the moment that is the long-term plan.
“So, I’ve done the deal in the short term, but it certainly has an eye on the future if we can deliver, he is the one person that has all the skill sets to deliver.”
Donald added: “He’s very keen to see if he can help the academy in the short term and explore untapped markets, he could also help shift players who want to leave form the current squad and generally have a look at the business overview.
“It is vital that the academy keeps its Category One status which wobbled slightly last year. “We need to look at how we utilise the Category One status which means we can take some players who we believe are potentially good enough for our first team and we could certainly look to invest some funds in looking at other players from lesser academies.
“And as Sunderland, we should be able to attract players from Category Two or Three teams.”
At the end of May, Donald flew out to Monaco for initial talks with Sartori whose father-in-law, Dmitry Rybolovlev, owns the French club.
Sartori has previously been part of an unsuccessful bid to takeover Oxford United.