15-minute meeting set up Svarnas move

When Raków Częstochowa signed Greek centre-back Stratos Svarnas on loan for an initial fee of €200k at the start of July 2022, aiming to build a squad capable of winning first-ever Polish Ekstraklasa title after successive second-place finishes.

Fast forward nearly 10 months, Svarnas had played 94% of the minutes in a defence that conceded 19 goals in their first 28 matches, leaving them in first place going into the season finale.

That prompted Raków to sign Svarnas on a permanent deal for €750k, less than a quarter of his Expected Transfer Value of €3.2m at the time he signed his four-year contract - a bargain signing which secured the club a big return on investment.

Raków made the initial loan deal happen by meeting both the decision makers at AEK Athens and P&P Sport Management, a Trusted Agency on TransferRoom, at a TransferRoom Summit.  

“Because TransferRoom is expanding worldwide, I see that there are more and more deals that it is included in at the beginning, middle or final stage of negotiations,” Bartosz Barnaś, the Head of Scouting at Raków, says in the video below.

“We had been interested in him for quite a long time and through TransferRoom, we found contact with his agent at one of the previous events.

“We were just having a chat about Stratos. We had a good connection with the agent and yes, Stratos is now at Raków. He's doing great. 

“We kept in touch and when the player became available, we made the deal. We reached an agreement, he was interested in our project.

“So we can say that in the beginning phase of the process, TransferRoom was there.”

Getting business done faster

Raków and all the other clubs in Poland’s top flight benefit from direct access to decision makers at more than 650 clubs in over 100 leagues worldwide as part of the league’s agreement with TransferRoom.

”You can always say that we knew the major part of the Polish market already, but because there is a league deal for the whole Ekstraklasa, it just makes things quicker.

“You can just send a message on the platform directly to the people who are responsible for the transfers in and out of the other clubs. So that's really helpful for us.”

As well as driving the domestic market, it’s the opportunity to grow their global network with access to a community of recruitment executives that has been a key benefit for Barnaś. 

“Either we contact the club directly or we can find the agent of the specific player, and the benefits of the TransferRoom events are also great. It’s a fantastic platform to expand your network. 

“Raków is a young club in Poland. So we are constantly looking for ways of how we can expand our network, not only in Europe, but also in South America and Africa. The event and TransferRoom platform gives us the opportunity to do just that.”