NEWS: Stewart Donald on whether co-owner Juan Sartori’s political venture will affect Sunderland

Stewart Donald was a guest on the Roker Rapport podcast once again today and, during our chat, he discussed the surprise announcement of his co-owner Juan Sartori running for president of Uruguay.

Donald revealed that he knew about the Uruguayan’s political ambitions prior to him getting involved with the club, but says he has no concerns about Sartori’s future involvement with Sunderland:

Yes [I knew], I don’t think it will effect anything for Sunderland.

He’s coming over to Sunderland in the next couple of weeks. It might make it difficult for him to maybe catch a couple of games, I don’t know the impact that will have on him.

It won’t lessen his desire, I’m certain of that, to make Sunderland a success.

It doesn’t matter if he’s the president of Uruguay or doing something completely different, he is absolutely determined to make Sunderland a success. He is pretty single-minded and he’s not going to change from that focus, no matter what.

As well as Sartori’s run for the presidency, Donald discussed his hope of bringing Uruguayan and South American talent to the Academy of Light:

Juan is all over that, not too into the detail. He just wants to fly over 50 Uruguayans and thinks I am going to sort out the work permits, living accommodations and everything that goes with it. He’s just talent spotting.

Our host Connor Bromley asked whether Sartori was personally scouting players but Donald clarified that he just has lots of connections out there, but the plan was going ahead:

He’s got lots of connections with football clubs out there, there’s lots of players desperate to come over. I think initially Juan thought it would be as simple as chartering a jet for them and bring them over and I’ll take care of the costs. We’ll bring over 50, we’d find 10 and send back 10 but I said ‘there are employment rules Juan’.

We’re just dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s but he is absolutely all over it. Hopefully there will be some decent South American players joining us for all the right reasons shortly.