If Pompey go out of business, the true fans will create and support a new club. If a neighbouring team is enjoying success, they pick up 'floating' fans who are geographically ambivalent or who only attend games against bigger clubs. I bet in our dark days we lost fans like that to Bournemouth, Brighton, Portsmouth etc. P.s. don't want to start the usual argument about 'real fans'...I'm sure Nicola welcomes their money the same as ours and they will help fund our state of art academy and new signings.
Been confirmed that they have entered Admin for the 2nd time in 3 years, points deduction could be anything between 10 and 20 points
I genuinely feel sorry for their fans. Of course i want them to struggle and Saints do well, but on the football pitch not the courts! Why do they seem to attract the worse kind of no mark, no money owners who are only looking to turn a fast buck on the back of their club. The FA need to ENSURE that the next owner really does exist, and really does have the money to turn them round and make it a self financing going concern. This may be down in L1, but as we found its not that bad when you are winning. And the Bournemouth fans can both try and create a "rivalry" with Pompey.
Look at the last time they found a rich owner... they won the FA cup, were in Europe... while we were sat at the bottom of the fecking championship. that was humiliating... they were on top of the world and we'd succumbed to nothing, do you want a scenario where they get a new stadium, sign good players and once again buy their way to trophies, while we... the responsible spenders, are left behind?! I'm not willing to take that chance ^
Responsible spenders? We are being financed by a billionaires estate, and whilst I am delighted this is the case, it can't be denied that we currently are spending beyond our means in an attempt to get back into the Prem. We wouldn't be able to spend this money if we were not owned by the Liebherr's. We are not taking it to the extremes Pompey did when they were in the Prem, but in comparison to other similar sized clubs we are spending a shedload.
What if they get a 'liebherr family' type owner? they build a new stadium... build a team, do well... they won't let us hear the end of it!
But this is now being done in conjunction with running the club like a business. In fact Mr Cortese refers to us as a "company" not a "club". When we reach the Premier League, he knows now what the wage structure will be and there will be no breaking it... which is on eof the major faux pas made down the road.
So it's happened, tomorrow is today and yet I feel no desire to celebrate. So, assuming things go our way tomorrow, how will you celebrate? Much more positive thought IMO.
Yes, but the plan is based on reaching the PL, which in itself is a gamble as we may not ever reach the PL. If we do then I'm sure we can become sustainable but at this moment in time we are not, if the Liebherr's decided to pull out tomorrow and we couldn't find a mega rich owner we would be in a spot of bother.
Don't forget we are slightly ahead of the five year plan, so no great cause for concern, NC did say he had other irons in the fire if the unthinkable happened, just keep the faith for now.
Cortese knows loads of potential interested parties who would be willing to buy Southampton FC and invest in it.No Probs
I'm not questioning it, I fully trust NC to do the right thing, but I'm just saying that we shouldn't be going about saying we are spending responsibly and within our means atm when it looks pretty evident that we aren't.
What is the source of your concern? Very few have access to our financial arrangements, it is all kept under tight wraps, if there is a leak, we should be told.
Well at a guess (obviously I don't know the full ins and outs of Saints finances) I would say that a club in our position could not afford to be building a new state of the art training centre whilst being in the Championship, we reportedly pay some of the bigger wages in the Champ, and we have paid a fair amount out in transfer fees aswell. Plus the academy cost which is reported at over £2 mil a year to run. If you look at another team with a similar average attendance as us (the main way imo to judge regular income), this would be Derby. I don;t see them spending the sorts of money with are. Obviously a fair bit of this will of been covered by the Chambo deal, but that is not sustainable in the long term, as it is a one off piece of business.
You are worrying too much, the club is in the middle of a five year business plan, which has the aim of making the club a self sufficient Premier league club. To achieve these goals, there has to be a degree of speculating to accumulate, especially as we have a good chance of promotion this season. Your comparison with Derby, could easily have been West Ham or Leicester and our wages and transfer fees have been lower than these clubs. Nicola Cortese hasn't made a bad decision yet, so there is no reason to suppose that he is being wreckless with the club's finances.
derby have a lot of debt, this is why they are cost cutting at moment and not buying players. youre just making a big deal out of nothing.
I'm not making a big deal out of anything I know why we can afford the things we are doing, I do understand that the Liebherr's are happy to fund the 5 year plan etc All I was initially pointing out was when somebody said we were spending responsibly, which in footballing terms is generally to be living within your means which we currently aren't. I'm not panicking or anything was just pointing one thing out
It depends what your opinion of "living within your means" is. We have spent a fair amount of money in order to recuperate it when we are back in the premier league. To me that is living within our means, but if your opinion is that a club should constantly be in the black then fair enough.
