By Jaroslaw Adamowski
January 20 – Another Polish top tier club has had a change of ownership. Poland’s city of Wroclaw has sold a majority stake in troubled football club Slask Wroclaw to local companies Hasco-Lek, Supra Invest and Inter-System.
The new owners acquired a combined 50.63% stake in the club which plays in the Ekstraklasa, the top division of Poland’s professional football league.
Poland’s ITI Group last week sold Legia Warsaw to Boguslaw Lesnodorski, the club’s chief executive, and his business partner Dariusz Mioduski.
Four bids were made for Slask, but only the three offers were in compliance with all formal requirements laid out by the city. Each of the companies will hold close to 16.88% of the shares. The Polish city will obtain about 4 million zloty (€1 million) from the sale, Slask said in a statement.
“The city is planning to further limit its capital and financial involvement in the club, but it also wants to secure the possibility to make key decisions,” the statement said.
Hasco-Lek is active in the pharmaceutical industry, Inter-System is a construction company, and Supra Invest is a financial services provider.
In November 2013, municipal authorities acquired full control over Slask. The city bought back a 51% stake from Polish billionaire Zygmunt Solorz-Zak. Over the past years, Slask has been struggling to stay financially afloat.
The club reportedly owes about 12 million zloty (€2.9 million) to the city. Despite this, Wroclaw included a 16 million zloty (€3.9 million) subsidy to Slask in its budget for 2014.
Slask’s stadium has a total capacity of 42,771 and hosted a number of matches at the UEFA Euro 2012 championships.
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