Southampton are in BIG trouble.

[Tyrone Biggums]

I don't know all the ins and outs of whats gone wrong there, but its not foreign ownership that has done for Southampton.
Most of their fans seem to blame Rupert Lowe.

Do you reckon it's an example of trying to keep up with the Jones'?

They wanted to look and act like a PL club despite not being able to actually afford to reamain a profitable one.

 

[Publius Ovidius]

its a sobering lesson to everyone...brand spanking new stadia will only be sucessful if you have the financial backing to create a team to fill them.

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

I take your point, but it really boils down to clubs cutting their cloth according to their circumstances. The only way to stop football clubs effectively gambling their futures (like the Southamptons, Leeds, Leicesters, Derbys of this world) is to impose a salary wagecap for each individual club, linking it directly with the clubs annual turnover (which I think is something that was done in the Blue Square Premier and L2). By imposing a rule that that no more than (say) 60% of a clubs annual turnover can go on players salaries, you force clubs to spend only within their means.

The trouble is that in football, ambition and greed are the overriding factors, so clubs at the higher level would never sign up to this. Or if they did, they'd find ways around it, with huge bonuses for players on top of their salaries.

It might just take a "big name" like Southampton to completely go under in order to wake clubs up to the fact that their spending is simply unsustainable.

Totally agree, football has become so much about ambition, over inflated egos and greed.

I guess as long as the top few clubs are backed by ludicrous amounts of money the situation is one that is nigh on impossible to fix.

I can never understand why the PL is held in such awe when since 1992 only 4 teams have won the title.

Yet in that time i'd say the PL has sent 2-3 times that amount of clubs into serious financial difficulties.

Unfortunately there's too much power held in the hands of but a few clubs to change anything for the better.

 

[theonesmith]

its a sobering lesson to everyone...brand spanking new stadia will only be sucessful if you have the financial backing to create a team to fill them.

Perhaps a reflection of what Wenger is doing at Arsenal- not quite the same thing I know but he is definately working successfully within budget.

 

[Easy 10]

Do you reckon it's an example of trying to keep up with the Jones'?

They wanted to look and act like a PL club despite not being able to actually afford to reamain a profitable one.

Well, they'd been in the top flight for about 25 years so they WERE well established. Things started going wrong when they mortgaged themselves up to the hilt with the stadium, then made the dreaded drop, but still operated themselves under the delusion that they were a "Premiership club" in the Championship and would go straight back up.

If I was a Newcastle fan, I'd be watching this Southampton situation unfold with an increasing sense of horror.

 

[severnside gull]

The likes of Birmingham and West Brom may be yo-yo clubs but they have gone down from the premiership and survived financially. Bolton,Hull and Stoke are examples of not overstretching. It is good financial management that is the key and we have been lucky in that respect and have survived when we could easily have folded.

If the FL were to give in to Southampton over the 10 points they would surely be sued to hell and back by the likes of Rotherham, Luton, Bournemouth.............

.......and why should bad financial management be rewarded anyway? Why shouldn't bad financial performance be punished? The feeling that some clubs in the past "cheated and prospered as a direct result" is exactly why we dislike Leeds and why success for the likes of Leicester and Cardiff is tainted in the eyes of most except their own fans. Those who live closest to the edge cite inconsistent FL rules but if we all went bust and went unpunished by the FL it would be one thing. When just a few think it is okay and the rules should not apply to them it degenerates into the economics of the madhouse - just ask the banking fraternity and look at how everyone else suffers when that happens.

I would be mortified for their fans if Southampton went out of business but I would be even more concerned for the future of football if the rule book were to be re-written in order to bail any one club out.

Fortunately I think they will survive but it may well be at the cost of another points deduction and their path back to the glory days may be delayed as has been Leeds. That will cause me no concern whatsoever.

 

[sir albion]

They won't fold end of and if they did who gives a toss,bet any of you now that saints will have a new chairman soon and will be splashing the cash.

 

[Iamapen15]

Bet you Notts Forest are pissed off, they've just paid £1m for a player they would have been able to pick up for nothing within the next 10 days or so!!!!!

 

[¡Cereal Killer!]

So what happens if they go out of business? will everyone just play 44 games instead?

 

[Lady Whistledown]

Yes. We need to liven up this thread by posting a picture of that statue of their club legend with his head is so badly mis-shapen that everybody laughed at and they had to re-do it.

Could anyone oblige?

Here we go

 

[Mackenzie]

Here we go

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

Here we go

Sculpting 101 wasn't taken by many art students at Southampton Uni.

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

According to the Guardian, the Administrators are going to consider winding up the club on Friday.

Pompey fans have been winding them up for years.

 

[supaseagull]

Here we go

If Bill Clinton & Ronnie Corbett had a secret love child, it would look like that!

 

[Ecosse Exile]

Here we go

Who is that meant to be anyway?

Ive seen my kids do better with plastercine

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

there for the grace of God and all that.

and Dick.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

Who is that meant to be anyway?

Ive seen my kids do better with plastercine

Southampton legend (apparently) Ted Bates.

The version above got melted down due to the public outcry- amongst Saints fans at least- over its cartoonish properties. This is the version they have now...which does make you wonder what the hell the original artist was modelling his sculpture on

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Completely unrelated ...

Ted Bates and Jimmy Crankie

Or is it Hazel Blears?

 

[seagull_special]

Southampton legend (apparently) Ted Bates.

The version above got melted down due to the public outcry- amongst Saints fans at least- over its cartoonish properties. This is the version they have now...which does make you wonder what the hell the original artist was modelling his sculpture on

looks like he is waving goodbye to Southampton

 

[Ecosse Exile]

Southampton legend (apparently) Ted Bates.

The version above got melted down due to the public outcry- amongst Saints fans at least- over its cartoonish properties. This is the version they have now...which does make you wonder what the hell the original artist was modelling his sculpture on

it does indeed, that dont even look like the same person