Oh when the Saints, go...

[Alan Partridge]

No doubt i'm going to be called a big gheyer, but I think it's pretty pathetic to see posters revelling in Southampton's plight and hoping for the club's complete obliteration for no other reason (that I can think of) other than one of their players talking out of his arse three years ago. I can't think of much else to dislike Southampton for.

They have a fan base not dissimilar to ours, the majority of who will be normal decent fans who will be literally devasted by their club going out of the league through circumstances completely beyond their control, as I and many other would be devasted were it to happen to Reading.

And, as we all know, there but for the grace of god go us, or any number of other clubs, it's the luck of the draw who you have running your club and the fans can do little to nothing if an incompetent or a crook takes over. Given our chairman is keen to sell, maybe those laughing at Southampton should reflect on that and, possibly, not be such twats and have a bit of compassion for their fellow football supporter.

Absolutely correct.

[Nick Shorey my Lord!]

No doubt i'm going to be called a big gheyer, but I think it's pretty pathetic to see posters revelling in Southampton's plight and hoping for the club's complete obliteration for no other reason (that I can think of) other than one of their players talking out of his arse three years ago. I can't think of much else to dislike Southampton for.

They have a fan base not dissimilar to ours, the majority of who will be normal decent fans who will be literally devasted by their club going out of the league through circumstances completely beyond their control, as I and many other would be devasted were it to happen to Reading.

And, as we all know, there but for the grace of god go us, or any number of other clubs, it's the luck of the draw who you have running your club and the fans can do little to nothing if an incompetent or a crook takes over. Given our chairman is keen to sell, maybe those laughing at Southampton should reflect on that and, possibly, not be such twats and have a bit of compassion for their fellow football supporter.

Absolutely correct.

There's an echo in here, because I agree also.

[TFF]

I agreed before Schards even said it. So there.

[Barry the bird boggler]

I expect they'll be saved at the last minute as ever with these things... all probably done to panic people and get the club for even less money.

For the record though I thought that St Mary's was already owned by the council or at least was not owned by the club.

[leon]

No doubt i'm going to be called a big gheyer, but I think it's pretty pathetic to see posters revelling in Southampton's plight and hoping for the club's complete obliteration for no other reason (that I can think of) other than one of their players talking out of his arse three years ago. I can't think of much else to dislike Southampton for.

They have a fan base not dissimilar to ours, the majority of who will be normal decent fans who will be literally devasted by their club going out of the league through circumstances completely beyond their control, as I and many other would be devasted were it to happen to Reading.

And, as we all know, there but for the grace of god go us, or any number of other clubs, it's the luck of the draw who you have running your club and the fans can do little to nothing if an incompetent or a crook takes over. Given our chairman is keen to sell, maybe those laughing at Southampton should reflect on that and, possibly, not be such twats and have a bit of compassion for their fellow football supporter.

Absolutely correct.

There's an echo in here, because I agree also.

couldn't agree more. Although let's be honest - no one really likes the Scummers.

[Platypuss]

I expect they'll be saved at the last minute as ever with these things... all probably done to panic people and get the club for even less money.

For the record though I thought that St Mary's was already owned by the council or at least was not owned by the club.

It's owned by a holding company which also owns the club - rather like our setup.

[Arch]

I'm with papereyes on this. There's something completely baffling about what's happened there. That really is a case of "where has all the money gone". Wages must be a big part of it and that's why as long as we're in the Championship you'll see our big earners spun off and not replaced with like. If we're going back up it's through a repeat of 06 and not through speculative investment.

[Terminal Boardom]

Oh so reminiscent of Norwich City under Sir Robert Chase. It took a concerted campaign by the fans to get him out after the outcry of selling off the family silver - Chris Sutton!

And to think that for years Southampton felt that The Dell was preventing them from effectively competing with other top flight clubs because of the limitations of their site. How times change.

[Hoop Blah]

I'm with papereyes on this. There's something completely baffling about what's happened there. That really is a case of "where has all the money gone". Wages must be a big part of it and that's why as long as we're in the Championship you'll see our big earners spun off and not replaced with like. If we're going back up it's through a repeat of 06 and not through speculative investment.

I don't get it either.

Just looking at their wages to revenue ratio and it doesn't look all that bad from 2003-07. That's obviously only part of the picture but their debts didn't look too high from 2007 either, so something has gone seriously wrong in the last couple of year.

07 = £14m wages/£19m Revenue
06 = 16.8/20.5
05 = 26.5/39.3
04 = 24.7/44.4
03 = 25.1/44.1

As a comparison, Readings go like

08 = 31.1/51.6
07 = 28.1/44.9
06 = 12.5/12.3
05 = 9.2/9.9
04 = 7.5/10.5

It does show how we didn't quite ramp up our wages to the same ratio once we got up to the Premier, and how Saints have almost gone the other way, so maybe in the Championship you have to spend more of your income on players wages. Makes the idea of the Premier costing so much more a bit laughable when both us and Saints had a much healthier wages/income ratio in the Premiership than the Championship.

[Arch]

Parachute payments would be included in the revenue for 06 and 07, so after that the numbers don't add up anymore (just as ours won't). But it's still a frighteningly rapid demise.

[papereyes]

Something really doesn't add up - and to ascribe it to Southampton spending money they didn't have doesn't seem to be enough of an argument, doesn't it?

[rabidbee]

Maybe they were already desperately chasing by 04, maybe the problems are much more deep-rooted? Or maybe this is just an indicator of how volatile football can be, as a business.

[papereyes]

Maybe they were already desperately chasing by 04, maybe the problems are much more deep-rooted? Or maybe this is just an indicator of how volatile football can be, as a business.

Three things jump out

*building of stadium - who financed it and how

*Harry Redknapp's spell there

*Clive Woodward's stay there

[rabidbee]

I'm just going to leave the words "Rupert" and "Lowe" here, I think.

[Royal Rother]

I'm with papereyes on this. There's something completely baffling about what's happened there. That really is a case of "where has all the money gone". Wages must be a big part of it and that's why as long as we're in the Championship you'll see our big earners spun off and not replaced with like. If we're going back up it's through a repeat of 06 and not through speculative investment.

I don't get it either.

Just looking at their wages to revenue ratio and it doesn't look all that bad from 2003-07. That's obviously only part of the picture but their debts didn't look too high from 2007 either, so something has gone seriously wrong in the last couple of year.

07 = £14m wages/£19m Revenue
06 = 16.8/20.5
05 = 26.5/39.3
04 = 24.7/44.4
03 = 25.1/44.1

As a comparison, Readings go like

08 = 31.1/51.6
07 = 28.1/44.9
06 = 12.5/12.3
05 = 9.2/9.9
04 = 7.5/10.5

It does show how we didn't quite ramp up our wages to the same ratio once we got up to the Premier, and how Saints have almost gone the other way, so maybe in the Championship you have to spend more of your income on players wages. Makes the idea of the Premier costing so much more a bit laughable when both us and Saints had a much healthier wages/income ratio in the Premiership than the Championship.

Southampton's average crowds in 05/06 and 06/07 (when the para payments would have been received) were 23,000.

I don't know what they were charging but if we assume £20 on average, then 23,000 x £20 x 23 matches provides £10.5m income. Add £11m of para money does get pretty close to the revenues shown in the above post - one would have thought there would be at least acouple of million income from other sources (conference centre, club shop, concessions etc) but maybe these were all directed elsewhere.

The most crucial factor is the cost of the new stadium - the ground was owned by Southampton Leisure Holdings plc which went into administration in April, as we know. Its wholly owned subsidiaries were as follows:

Southampton Football Club Ltd
St. Mary's Stadium Ltd
St. Mary's SPV Ltd
Southampton Insurance Services Ltd
Southampton Mortgage & Financial Centre Ltd
Saints Supporters Club Ltd
Southampton Swaylife Ltd
Secure Retirement Ltd
Dell Estates Ltd
St Michael's Street Homes (No. 1) Ltd
Stadium 2000 Ltd
Felix Broadcasting Ltd
South City FM Ltd
Forest FM Ltd

I haven't made a study of Southampton FC's financial plight, but it is perfectly possible that the Holding Co was charging the FC an exorbitant rent which it couldn't afford, in an effort to prop up others of its (possibly) underperforming subsidiaries - possibly the Directors of the Holding Company were taking vast salaries as well, until the whole thing started to fall over. The names suggest there arre a few of those companies that might have invested in property in and around Southampton - maybe they over-extended themselves and ended up completely skint across the whole group as their landbank / property portfolio collapsed in value as the recssion bit - maybe due diligence unearthed a can of worms in the structure of the group and it became unclear who owed what to whom, which might have caused the withdrawal of potential buyers.

It would be interesting to know their player tradings over the last few season as well.

Having seen Reading FC's accounts, they are pretty clear and there are precious few grey areas - I haven't seen SFC's so can't offer anything better than guesswork

[Arch]

I haven't made a study of Southampton FC's financial plight, but it is perfectly possible that the Holding Co was charging the FC an exorbitant rent which it couldn't afford

They wouldn't have to have done, though, in order to reach the current situation. It's the holding company that's gone bust, and now there are no resources to cover the clubs losses which - in football terms - may be quite modest. The 6m losse we sustained when we were last in the Championship would have done us in if we had no way to cover our liabilities.

[Ian Royal]

I've disliked Saints for a lot longer than Nigel Quashie played for them. I think it's inevitable that a club with a fairly high profile is going to fold sooner or later.

The sooner it happens I think the better for football as a whole and after Leeds, Bolton or Chelsea, Saints would be one of my next preferences, on the assumption that it has to be someone and they have to be relatively high profile.

There aren't masses of clubs in the area, although there is one pretty close, and it's quite heavily populated as an area. It sould be very attractive to investors without masses of debts to pay off, so I also think a new club could rise quite quickly to fairly reasonable heights. Quite probably quicker than Aldershot IMO.

Maybe, just maybe if it happens more action will be taken quicker to make football more sustainable and less open to abuse. But it has to be a club that's big and goes under pretty quickly. Luton, for example, aren't big enough and are going under too slowly to really put the breaks on things.

[Deathy]

I share no preference for a big club going under, but it does need to happen if only to bring football back under control, if at all possible.

[rabidbee]

It won't though, will it?

[Ian Royal]

W'll never know until it happens. It can't hurt football as a whole.

I don't wish it on any club, but I reserve the right to laugh when clubs I don't like look like suffering it, quite possibly / probably through mismanagement.