THE daughter of former Southampton owner Markus Liebherr has revealed that her family had no idea how to run a football club when he took over.
Swiss businessman Liebherr bought Southampton back in 2009, but tragically died of a heart attack the following year.
His daughter, Katharina Liebherr, inherited the club and his £3billion fortune when he passed away.
However, she had no experience in running a football club – nor did anybody in her family.
Katharina said: “It was a shock when my father bought Southampton FC! As a family, we had no experience in this industry.
“He bought the club in 2009 and died in 2010. I have never seen him as happy as he was this year. Even though he wasn’t allowed to witness any of our ascents, he still fulfilled his lifelong dream.”
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Speaking about her father’s death, she added: “Those were dramatic days. When his death was announced, the next day there was a sea of flowers and football jerseys with his name in front of the stadium.
“It was an incredible experience to see how respected he was there. It shows that he did a lot of things right in the year he was there.
“The club would no longer exist without him. He dared the adventure and took the risk. He acted very quickly.
“And, very important to him, he immediately took over all of Southampton’s outstanding invoices to ensure that no small company anywhere could get into financial difficulties when the club was threatened with insolvency.
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“And I will never forget the reaction of people. People who didn’t actually know him mourned for him.
“The people and the staff who hugged me with tears in their eyes – that’s what tied me to Southampton forever.”
Having never worked in football before, let alone been put in charge of a club, Katharina faced scepticism from thousands of fans.
Speaking about her experience, she explained: “I had stayed very much in the background the year before. The fans didn’t know what to expect.
“I was okay with the fact that I had to prove myself first. I think the most important thing is to accept that you don’t know anything about football unless you’ve been on the pitch for 30 years.
“You have to know what you can do and what you can’t do.”
Katharina remained the owner of Southampton until 2017, when she sold an 80 per cent stake to Chinese businessman Gao Jisheng.
The Swiss businesswoman has since admitted that she made the decision to sell up to prepare for “worse times”.
She said: “You need a lot of capital. Especially in the Premier League. The heights aren’t really a problem.
“With Ronald Koeman as coach and Ralph Krueger as chairman, we reached 6th place, and things went very well during the time that I was the sole owner.
“But it is important to prepare for worse times. We were looking for partners for this.
“My concern was always to find someone to whom I could pass the club into good hands.
“I always wanted to stay there, but above all because I have a strong emotional bond with the employees and can build a bridge to a new owner.
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“Mr Gao had similar values to my father. His daughter is the same age as me and she was also at the wedding. That would actually have been a good solution.”
Katharina is now married to Mustafa Chaban, the head of the Dior branch in Zurich, Switzerland.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
