That’s the question on all Saints fans’ lips this morning after he was revealed on Sky Sports News as one of the men behind the Pinnacle bid to buy Southampton FC.

The Daily Echo - and indeed a number of SaintsWeb Forum members - has done some digging into the 32-year-old, and the results don’t appear to make pretty viewing.

They reveal that:

• Fialka has lived in a modest semi-detached house in Mandeville Road, Barnet, North London for at least 13 years with his parents Sandra and Stephen - his brother Simon, 35, moved out last year;
• his neighbour confirmed that he is a “letting agent”;
• a search on Companies House reveals two directorships, both registered to an accountants in London - Kitestone Ltd, which generated a profit of £31,124 (turnover of £51,845) for the year ended 30 June 2008 and NW8 Ltd, which turned over £51,000 with a profit of £27,905 during the same period;
• a similar-named company, NW8 Holdings Ltd, was involved in a property deal in St John’s Wood, North London, worth £39m, but there are no obvious links between Fialka and this company.

This clearly opens up a whole new can of worms, particularly after Tony Lynam - who is fronting the Pinnacle bid - had amended his claim that there was one backer worth “several hundred million” to the situation now where there are a number of backers.

Lynam claims that Fialka has access to “substantial funds” - I would politely suggest that now is most certainly the time for them to emerge from hiding as well to demonstrate that they’re not just another bunch of tyre-kickers.

The big question that remains from all of this is how this group got to this advanced stage of discussions with both the administrator and the Football League - with “proof of funds” having been demanded right from the outset, it’s difficult to see how they could have possibly got as far as they have without actually having access to these “substantial funds”. It seems, based on the evidence available, that these funds won’t be coming from Fialka - if he does indeed have backers himself, as is claimed, then he’s simply another layer of middle-men after his own cut of any deal, which is naturally of concern.

Wages are yet to be paid for June, mostly because the club is still in a state of limbo where it can’t (or won’t) sell any season tickets for next season, which would have comfortably covered the wages until at least October - with that in mind, it’s even more important that a deal with anyone gets concluded very soon, even if it involves bending over for the Football League - it’s widely rumoured that the disagreement is not over the 10-point deduction we have already received but over their desire to deduct a further 15 points as a CVA is guaranteed to not be agreed due to the fact that the football club itself is not in administration and therefore doesn’t need one!