Rasmus Ankersen (born 22 September 1983) is an author, public speaker, director of football at

Southampton Southampton () is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire, S ...

and president of Göztepe. He is the co-founder and CEO of Sport Republic, the major shareholder of

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club Southampton and

TFF First League The TFF 1. Lig, officially known as Spor Toto 1. Lig for sponsorship reasons, is the second level of the Turkish football league system. The league was founded in 2001 as the ''Turkish Second League Category A'' after the reorganization of the ...

club Göztepe. Ankersen was Director of Football at

Brentford Brentford is a suburban town in West London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It lies at the confluence of the River Brent and the Thames, west of Charing Cross. Its economy has diverse company headquarters buildings w ...

between 2015 and 2020. He also has a part-time role as chairman of

Danish Superliga The Danish Superliga ( da, Superligaen, ) is the current Danish football championship tournament, and administered by the Danish Football Association. It is the highest football league in Denmark and is currently contested by 12 teams each y ...

club

FC Midtjylland FC Midtjylland (, "Central Jutland") is a Danish professional football club based in Herning and Ikast in the western part of Jutland. The club is the result of a merger between Ikast FS and Herning Fremad. Midtjylland competes in the Danish Su ...

Early football career

Ankersen had a short career as a professional football player with

in Denmark, before suffering a serious knee injury in his first senior game. He then studied for UEFA's A Licence, and became the assistant-coach for the under-17 team at a club.

owner

Matthew Benham Matthew Alexander Benham (born May 1968) is a British businessman who is the owner of English Premier League club Brentford FC and FC Midtjylland in Denmark. He is also the founder and owner of Smartodds, a statistical research company for prof ...

became the majority shareholder of FC Midtjylland in 2014 and installed Ankersen as chairman of the club. Ankersen stepped down from the role at the same time he left Brentford.

Brentford

Ankersen was appointed as co-director of football at Brentford in the summer of 2015, along with Phil Giles. Their responsibility was to oversee the football operations of the club as well as being responsible for managing the recruitment of new players and technical staff. In December 2021, Ankersen stepped down from his position at Brentford to set up a sports investment fund.

Sport Republic

Sport Republic was founded in December 2021 by Ankersen and Henrik Kraft. Ankersen was listed as CEO and Kraft was listed as chairman of the company. Sport Republic is backed by Serbian billionaire

Dragan Šolak Dragan Šolak ( sr, Драган Шолак; born 30 March 1980) is a Turkish-Serbian chess grandmaster. Career Šolak learnt chess from a very young age and started participating in tournaments before he turned four years of age. In 2002 he ti ...

. On 4 January 2022, Sport Republic brought English club

. On 19 August 2022, Sport Republic acquired a 70% controlling stake in Turkish side Göztepe SK. Ankersen was appointed chairman of Göztepe. Following Southampton’s relegation from the

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

at the conclusion of the

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season, Sport Republic announced organisational changes at the club. Ankersen will continue as CEO of Sport Republic, overseeing football strategy.

Published work

Ankersen has published several books, including; ''A Winner's DNA'', ''Mid-level DNA, Education of a Winner, The Gold Mine Effect'', and ''Hunger in Paradise'' with Danish publisher Turbulenz''.'' In his books he draws on experiences traveling around the world to live with, work with and inspect some of the world's best talent environments in sports. Due to the popularity of his books, he has been dubbed a 'high performance expert'. The attention gained from his written work has led to many high-profile public speeches, appearing in popular media outlets

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ankersen, Rasmus 1983 births Living people Danish sports coaches FC Midtjylland Brentford F.C. non-playing staff People from Herning Municipality Southampton F.C. directors and chairmen