PAOK sold the 25-year-old international to Zenit Saint Petersburg for 3.5 euros, eleven times the amount of money they had spent to buy him two years ago, and his sale is actually the first important one during owner Ivan Savvidis' era. However, SDNA understands that luck played an important role at Robert Mak's arrival at Thessaloniki.
The former player of the greek side, Ryan Kapagiannidis, had offered the Slovak winger to the officials of PAOK (who had never seen him in action before but had included him in their shortlist) at summer of 2014, after the relegation of of his team, FC Nürnberg, to Zweite Bundesliga.
Still, their first choice for the attacking line back then was Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk's Brazilian Matheus Leite Nascimento, who had impressed technical director Zisis Vryzas, but the deal was not completed with success because the experienced striker was asking for an extremely high annual salary of 1.4 million euros.
The next footballer on PAOK's radar was Saint-Étienne's Yohan Mollo. Agent Pavlos Topidis had offered him to the administration and the three sides soon managed to reach an agreement, but the French winger was being represented by some agents who were previously working with Olympiakos' Sporting Director Pierre Issa.
The Reds had just signed PAOK's transfer target Kostas Fortounis and nobody at Thessaloniki club was willing to see the deal with Yohan Mollo "surprisingly" falling through and the player joining rivals Olympiakos. Zisis Vryzas and manager Angelos Anastasiadis decided then to make a move for FC Nürnberg's Robert Mak.
Legia Warsaw, a wealthy club with modern stadium, strong squad and constant participation in the european competitions, had also approached the Slovak winger and seemed the favorites of signing him. However, the talented footballer finally decided to join PAOK for an annual salary of 300.000 euros and some bonuses, much less than his previous contract with FC Nürnberg (360-500.000 euros).
Robert Mak claims that this decision was strictly a matter of instinct, something which helped him win a lucrative contract with Zenit Saint Petersburg and also PAOK to earn 3.5 million euros from his transfer two years later. Still, we should mention that the excellent season of the 25-year-old international (21 goals during 2015-16) did not come from a serious team's plan about him.
Manager Igor Tudor started using Robert Mak as "false nine" at summer matches because of starting striker Stefanos Athanasiadis' injury and he was also lucky because the national team of his motherland, Slovakia, advanced to the European Championship of France for the first time in their history and he was included in the tournament's squad.
PAOK should be helping its footballers to reach their highest transfer value through smart athletic projects that will allow them prove their quality, something that owner Ivan Savvidis has also asked for, but even this way the sale of Robert Mak to Zenit Saint Petersburg is the first serious move of the greek side to the direction of becoming a respected "selling club".
