Link: http://www.forzaroma.info/2013/09/28/cortese-la-rinascita-del-southampton-parla-italiano/266804 NICOLA CORTESE: THE REBIRTH OF SOUTHAMPTON SPEAKS ITALIAN "I speak two or three times a year. It's always dangerous when the chairman speaks too much, the manager and players have the public role". Nicola Cortese, 45 year old from Catanzaro di Lido, rampant career in the world of Swiss banking decided to venture into the maze of the football world whilst maintaining a low profile. For 4 years he has been at the head of Southampton, the English club of the Premier League where Pablo Osvaldo has taken refuge after the poisons of the Romanisti (Roma fans) & Romans, but his figure still retains something of a mystery. Few are aware of the fact that this Italian with Swiss mentality ("here now I consider myself English") sits in the office as "chairman, general director, sporting director, I am like a Galliani (CEO of AC Milan) across the channel". In 2009 Southampton floundered in the 3rd division and on the verge of bankruptcy: as a consultant to family of Markus Liebherr, Swiss industrialist, Cortese purchased the club for £12m (less than the cost of Osvaldo) received a clean sheet to work on the management and strategies of the club, "whose image was destroyed". Today Southampton is a club bursting with health. Nobody dares to question the leadership of the man in charge with Calabrian roots and the owners are left to collect the profits, the equivalent of €2.5m for the first 6 months of this year. "In effect - confessed Cortese with a hint of complacency - I feel like the moral owner of the club". The original plan was to return to the great heights of football in 5 years ("When I revealed this people laughed"). In reality, after 3 seasons Southampton are in the Premier League and today it's organisational machine is a point of reference in Continetal football. "I had to rebuild the company from the ground up. In 2009 there were only 90 employees, now almost 250. The academy was dead, we relaunched putting our youth at the centre of our project. This year, in a game we deployed three 18 year olds in the starting 11: in the Premier League it had never happened". And in the opening months of next year also the new training ground will be ready. "The decisive factor was a visit I made to Milanello (AC Milan's training base). The red&black college has become a bit of a point of reference for me, I felt a family feeling, the place had charm". To achieve his miracle, the chairman made in Italy has focused on a so called 'Southampton Way', a way of being and a style of those who work for Southampton. "Here the hierarchy only exists on paper, I don't want them to call me chairman. Our club isn't made up of just 11 players, after 4 years we have many talented individuals not just on the pitch. The Southampton Way means focusing on quality and being the best in everything we do. We do not want to follow others, we want them to follow us". A fan of AS Roma ("Because when I was at Trigoria (Roma's training base) to sign Osvaldo I mentioned this"), Cortese lives for football but is not crazy for it ("I love my work but not the matches, when we play away I stay at home"), which has strictly a management conception ("I don't work in a club, but a business that produces football"). Obvious that his eyes appear magnified about our miseries ("It makes me sad to see how low Italian football is, I believe that it lacks respect, ideas and humility") but one day someone might call him to help heal the woes of Serie A: "I have Italian blood and I go on holiday in Forte dei Marmi. But I do not know what the future holds". DTLW
I speak two or three times a year. It's always dangerous when the chairman speaks too much, the manager and players have the public role Totally agree with that!
I dont know the club was pretty much down and out and a laughing stock through the antics of Lowe and others.
Interesting. I'm sure this comment will provoke a reaction: And this comment about the academy is bollocks. I guess this puts things in perspective a bit (although who knows how accurate the figures they quote are)
Nothing we didn't know already. He has been a fantastic leader but I'm not too confident that he has put into place a structure that will be as effective when he leaves so when he talks about how much he loves going back to italy etc. it makes me nervous. I'm hoping its just the papers Italian bias rather than Cortese keeping an eye out for a job in italy. Realistically this isn't going to be his last ever project and I think its more likely that he will leave within the next 10 years than not. I really hope by that stage we have a new stadium and are financially in a position to support Cortese's current ambition sustainably. As for mine Cortese has been and still is the strongest factor in our drive towards european football and we wouldn't have nearly as much impetus without him.
"Nobody dares to question the leadership of the man in charge" *Slowly puts up hand and scampers off before you can catch me
Interesting. That's a period in which we didn't spend a tonne on transfer fees, and in which we'd have received our prize money. From that, I'd assume that we lost money last year...but while I realize that teams' FY accounts aren't kept over the same schedule as the games, except that Cortese likely wouldn't be making reference to the Liebherrs 'collecting the profits' if we'd lost any real sum over the course of the '12/'13 season.
Swiss Ramble had us losing £11.9m in 2012, but as that spans the last half of the Championship season and first half of the year back in the Prem, it's hard to say where the losses were incurred.
