Ludvík Karl, the owner of Preciosa and still Slovan Liberec, is known to be very tough in business negotiations, but also fair. Mainly the second mentioned feature was revealed in Ondřej Novotný’s podcast Where the Hare Runs by the future owner of the North Bohemian club Ondřej Kania, who appreciates how the negotiations on the sale of the club went.
Future owner of Slovan Liberec Ondřej Kania. | Photo: CzechCrunch
“The key thing was Mr. Karl’s approach. I have never come across anything like that in business. He was only interested in what the trade would bring to the club and did not consider his financial or other benefit at all. There wasn’t a single moment when he didn’t keep his word or tried something on me,” revealed the young entrepreneur during the interview.
He said he had four clubs on his shortlist, but from the beginning everything was directed towards the north of Bohemia. “The initial meeting with Mr. Karl confirmed to me that Liberec makes the most sense. There was always a problem with the other clubs, which was primarily related to the property structure. If you generally have a company that has an operating loss of approximately 50 million crowns, only a fool would pay someone the value of the players from Transfermarkt for the club and guarantee that the operating loss will be covered,” he covered the negotiations with one of the owners. According to Jan Vack, it should have been the České Budějovice boss Vladimír Koubek, who envisioned the sale of Dynamo in this way.
Three-quarters of Slovan’s shares are worth two decent dinners in London, Kania revealed
Another important point was owning or rather not owning the stadium. “I didn’t want a club that has its own stadium. Economically, it doesn’t make sense to buy a club with its stadium when there are many clubs where the stadium is owned by the city and only a symbolic rent is paid,” Kania added his perspective on the matter.
He also didn’t want to embark on some suicide mission with an uncertain outcome. “Ideally, it should have been a club that is a well-run organisation, and we can tell by the results. We don’t have to talk about Liberec being a TOP 4 club for the last 25 years. Many people also have a relationship with this club. There is a huge potential for the fact that if we give Liberec new energy, it can be very good,” he believes in the right path.
He then elaborated on his answer. “I can’t justify a situation where I should give 100-150 million for a company that loses 50 million and invest another 150 million to be able to move it somewhere where I have a theoretical chance for European cups and sometimes it will come back,” he shook his head .
In Liberec, they do not hide their enthusiasm for the planned store. For example, this is how actor and Liberec native Ladislav Hampl expressed himself on the X social network:
He and Ludvík Karl quite quickly agreed on how the store should look. “My ideal scenario was to find someone who is not interested in money, has assets and will not ask me for 100 million. Rather, he will proceed to invest a relatively large amount in the club, remain as a co-shareholder and participate in its management,” continued Kania in revealing the deal.
For now, however, the Liberec boss is still the 100% owner of Slovan, because together with Ondřej Kania, he signed an option to sell 75% of the club’s shares, which must be exercised by mid-May. “I can officially exercise the option by May 15, but I plan to do it earlier, around March. So I’m not thinking about this season, I’m only mentally focused on the next one,” added the native of Brno.
Entrepreneur Ondřej Kania on Czech education: We are 30 years behind the West
Immediately after the news about the sale of Slovan began to spread not only among the football public, speculations about possible changes to the coaching post also began to abound. But Kania denied that. “The management team in Liberec has a contract until the end of the season and I cannot imagine that theoretically they will finish fifth, sixth or win the cup and I will let such a coach go. I have never met Mr. Kozle and I was extremely embarrassed when it came out in the media that I had met Radek Kováč. Likewise, I have met dozens of other football people over the past months. I understood that I was part of a game that was supposed to serve something, and it probably did,” admitted the owner of several prestigious schools that he may have slightly underestimated the power of the football environment and will have to be more cautious.
“I would like to apologize inside the club. Never in my life would I have thought that when my wife and I meet Kovi in the parking lot in Liberec, walk 350 meters, sit down and order tea, someone will immediately call me saying they know where I’m sitting and with whom,” Ondřej Kania concluded by apologizing .
