The consortium led by Tony Lynam and fronted by Matt Le Tissier has withdrawn from the race to assume control at St Mary’s after failing to secure assurances from the Football League over further points deductions.

Le Tissier told Sky Sports News “We had actually spoken to the backers and talked them into accepting the 10 point deduction and getting on with things, but there were other issues that came up and issues we were only aware of after we had signed the exclusivity agreement. From that point of view, the backers have taken a stance that they are not willing under the terms on offer to put the money in.”

The news will come as a major embarrassment to both Le Tissier and Lynam, both of whom had been adamant that a deal would be completed by Tuesday this week, and only adds to the belief among a number of fans that, since the exclusivity period was gained, the money’s never been there in the first place.

It is widely accepted that the deposit they paid for the exclusivity rights was composed of the first payment from Swansea City for the signing of Nathan Dyer and former chairman Leon Crouch writing a cheque for the remainder - possibly in exchange for a seat on the new board.

Then, after administrator Mark Fry requested that one of the backers went public, we had the Fialka Fiasco, with simple searches of public data finding that Michael Fialka, who had been paraded on Sky Sports News as a multi-millionaire, couldn’t possibly have that sort of wealth. Lynam back-tracked and claimed he was fronting a group of investors, rather than being the money man himself.

Fry has said he “wasn’t surprised” that the Pinnacle group withdrew their offer, which only begs the question as to why he continued to entertain them for so long rather than pursuing other angles. Alarm bells should have been ringing as soon as they were unable to put up the £500k deposit nearly six weeks ago, and we now find ourselves in a position of pure desperation.

A number of contracts expired yesterday including those of club captain and player of the season Kelvin Davis, who now seems set to sign for West Ham on a free transfer, and current head coach Mark Wotte and the majority of his backroom staff. Only reserve team coach Stewart Henderson remains from the coaching team.

The original deadline set by Fry last week of this Friday for a deal to be concluded may, however, be extended slightly after the sale of David McGoldrick to Nottingham Forest for £1m, which should keep the wolves from the door for another month or so. However, it seems hard to believe that the club can carry on for that long under these circumstances given that the season starts in a month’s time, and indeed we have a home game against Ajax in just over two weeks’ time - tickets for which haven’t yet gone on sale. Season tickets also remain elusive.

When Bournemouth were in administration this time last year, they continued to take money from supporters for season and match tickets but funnelled the money into an account that was unconnected with the football club, the contents of which were then released to the club once the takeover was completed. I see no reason why we can’t do the same, and I’m surprised and slightly disappointed that this doesn’t appear to have been explored.

Of course it could be that in a week’s time we don’t have a club to support, but in those circumstances the money would surely be able to be refunded.

All of this leaves the Swiss group, who nobody seems to know anything about, as the supposed front-runners, although there have also been rumours of Red Bull, based in Austria, being interested - Southampton Red Bulls would be a lot easier to stomach than having no club at all, that’s for sure…

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!

In fairly unsurprising news, the Football League have announced that they will not back down from their insistence that Saints’ new owners agree to waive their right of appeal against the 10-point deduction given to them in April.

The League released a brief statement shortly after the meeting:

The Board of The Football League met today to consider representations from the ‘Pinnacle Group’ with regard to their proposed takeover of Southampton Football Club.

The Football League has the responsibility to ensure all League clubs start the season with certainty as regards the competition they compete in.

With that in mind, The Football League has responded directly to the Pinnacle Group, and will continue to liaise with their representatives going forward.

While there won’t be many Saints fans who would argue that, in the “spirit” of the rules, we don’t deserve the points deduction, many will point to the gaping loophole in the rules which suggested that we may have had a chance of avoiding the penalty. However, the main bone of contention for Saints fans now is that the new owners have had a gun held to their head before they’ve even changed the plaque on the chairman’s office, and have been refused a basic legal right that underpins a lot of the British legal system.

Convicted murderers, rapists and paedophiles get the opportunity to appeal, even if the evidence is stacked against them, so why is a football club being refused the option, particularly when the appeal would be heard by the Football League themselves? All it would take is for them to reject the appeal and that would pretty much be the end of it. Taking the decision they have opens up suggestions that they don’t have a great deal of confidence in the original penalty and that they were worried about losing an appeal which would have been hugely embarrassing and could have rendered the board’s position untenable.

It’s ironic that, despite the loophole that we supposedly exploited (relatively unwittingly), that loophole which implies that the Football League only has jurisdiction over the company registered with them (in our case, Southampton Football Club Limited) and not any connected subsidiaries or parent companies has still not been closed and only goes to show the bumbling attitude the Football League appear to have, and the belief that they are above the law and can essentially do as they please.

Someone somewhere will make things incredibly uncomfortable for Lord Mawhinney and his gentlemans’ club who sit around the table with him. The conflict of interests in having representatives of other clubs adjudicating on this shouldn’t be underestimated either.

Saints fans will now face an anxious wait to discover Pinnacle’s next move - while I would like to be determined to fight the Football League on this, it’s clear that they’re the ones holding all the aces (rightly or wrongly), and the only way we can move forward is if somebody just accepts the 10 points and gets on with things.

Whether that will be with Matt Le Tissier as chairman, who knows? Marc Jackson’s group are still waiting in the wings according to the Echo, and he may be linked to the “unhelpful outside influences” both Tony Lynam and Le Tissier have referred to in the past week or so. There also remains an unknown Swiss bid which, given Jackson’s “success” at taking over Bournemouth last year, would appear to have a slight advantage, but who knows…