StuRomseySaint

70% of football clubs in England have some form of installment plan. This is proof in itself that it's a financially viable scheme. The only clubs that don't have them are the clubs which have no demand for them. You lot keep mentioning defaults....... it is obviously not an issue of more then 60 football clubs in England would not use the system!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Jeesh. Right, What information of evidence do you have on defaulters and what the number is? Is there anything you can show me to prove it's not a viable option... I will raise you more than 60 clubs in England using this system... are you saying that Southampton is less affluent than most places and we have more defaulters and adverse credit people than Manchester, P*rtsmouth, Hull, Sheffield, Leeds etc etc etc....? It works and it is a financially viable option. If it wasn't, the MASSIVE majority of football clubs who have a demand for the service, would not use it. Right, off out for a run.

Exactly, the footballing side of things he was a disaster and a complete **** As far as running a business went, he was very astute and we would never have been at St Marys without him, as much as a bitter pill to swallow that is, it's the truth. One point in that though... I know he pushed ahead and signed Delgado without consulting a manager... and it proved a disaster, for reasons not to do with football... Delgado was WORLD CLASS though and had he not been such a girl, he would have set the Premiership alight.

Do your research first DD. Sheffield Weds tickets behind the goals are £16 - £23 depending on the game and whether you book online/offline. Ours are between £22 and £27 On the sides they are between £21 and £32 and ours are between £25 and £30 Sheff Weds have 3 categorys, and the majority of games will be in the lower categorys. So we have more expensive tickets on a match by match basis than Wednesday.

For what reasons? ( I do too think he was a c*nt, but not because of the way he managed SFC's finances )

Let's clear one thing up... the only thing Lowe can be guilty of is running too tight a ship, maybe not having the ambition and not taking a punt and borrowing money, incompetent at running 'the business' he was most definately not. It's amusing that you lot advocate Cortese raising charges left, right and centre to try and maximise income, yet Lowe ran SFC as a self-sufficiant business and he was wrong for doing so? We didn't have a god given right to stay in the Premiership, we were always going to get relegated at some point. And it was Wilde and Crouch's gamble spending money to get us in the play-offs which backfired and started the slide into administration. Disclaimer: I would like to also state that for various reasons, I wanted shot of Lowe too and absolutely hated the snooty nosed c*nt.

Instead of the once again, lazy post. How's about you offer something back? What bit don't you agree with?

I don't see why not. You can pay for playstation games and golf clubs in installments in Cash Convertors, so I don't see why SFC merchandise should be any different.

I reckon the price will be at least a fiver more, I'll have a moan about that, even though I haven't bought a shirt for years. :-)

And one that was a PLC chairmans and on a Ltd Company chairman. Completely different.

Bless your optimism. :-) The reality is that Liebherr will have had to loan SFC very little money in the last year, infact I would not be surprised if we have turned a profit/broken even before Liebherrs loan payments are taken back. ML only has mega-wealth if he wants to give it to Saints, the club is being run as a self-sufficiant business, Cortese has told us that, so Liebherrs wealth is irrelevent apart from we have the piece of mind that we will not go pop again.

It's another thing to release a statement about the sponsorship which is a lie... Seriously, I am off to bed now and staying off the forum tommorow, I do feel for you if you think thinks are as rosy as you say. I am not saying they are bad... but Liebherr is not just throwing money at us willy nilly! It's a bit like listening to your mate talking about a girl that he loves and him telling you she thinks he is amazing, but you know she is f*cking someone else, you just don't know what to say to make him realise. :-(

Well he instructed his staff to give the reason behind the lack of payment plans as " it costs too much to administrate " - That's a lie. He said that the lack of sponsorship on the shirt next season was a gesture from the club to the fans because we don't need the money - That was a lie. So I dunno, you do the maths? The beauty about SFC being a private Ltd company now is we may never know just how much Liebherr put in from his own pocket and how much he took back. By the way, I am not saying it's a bad way of running the club, it's the way most Ltd football clubs operate.

We are not heavily in debt... because we have the luxury of our loanee being our owner, so he can take back his money from the profits when it suits. But don't be naive to think he doesn't want his money back... and quite right he should want it back too! Anyway, forget the loaning, regardless what people have said about investment last season, it wouldnt surprise me if we turned a profit anyway.

Once again I was using the P*rtsmouth example as how an owner can 'loan' the club money and then when it goes into administration, still be a creditor. I think you are getting a little over-excited and expecting a bit too much from Liebherr. I thought half way through the season that maybe he is in it for a bit of fun... but it's most definately a business venture, the last couple of months have shown that. If you did read the article link you will have seen that it's pretty much every owner, wealthy and super-wealthy, that LOAN their clubs money. Anyway, it's a boring subject and all might become clear when the accounts come out.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I get it, " Cortese said so " There's that blind love again... SFC do not have loans with any other businesses, the only person that finances us is Marcus Liebherr... and he does not do it for free... it's how business works and it's how business in football works, because then, if something goes wrong and the club goes pop, they remain a creditor and get some of their investment back... which is what Chanrai did.

Read the article, nearly all private owners loan the money and expect if back... I am not having a dig a Liebherr for it... it's just how it happens in football. Liebherr will be taking his money back out of the profits. For the record I don't think they are running it like the skates... bad example, I was just explaining how all club owners don't "give" money to the club, they loan it, and expect it back... sometimes with interest.

O.K I am glad I read this before I bothered to reply to your other thread. Of course he is loaning the club money, he expects every penny of it back, including the £11m or whatever it was to buy the club. He is not in it for sh!ts and giggles, he is in it for the investment and to turn a profit. The same as any other privately owned football club. The only owner I know to have written of his money owed is Abramovich who wrote them off last year. Why do you think every single one of P*mpeys zillion owners are owed money? They are 'loans' to the club. Here you go... read this... http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/may/19/premier-league-finances-wages

Exactly. It is beggars belief that 90% of our supporters seem to accept the lovely 'gesture' from Cortese of not having a shirt sponsor when all he has done is pass the cost on ( and some more for himself ) to the customer in the form of charges and season ticket rises. The extra revenue generated from the increases and charges are more than double what the club could expect to earn from having a sponsor. Yeah, cheers for that SFC, nice one, really appreciated.

No he doesn't what?!

You can't compare them, as I said. Lowe had to rely on money generated to run the business and had a duty to the people in the City and shareholders to look after their shares. Cortese has the luxury of having nobody to answer to apart from Marcus, and the massive luxury of being able to call on interest free loans at any point that he feels SFC needs another cash injection. After all... let's not forget, Southampton is in debt... all the money put in has been loaned from Liebherr, he expects it back.

Well I will summarise because I am going to have a 'life' tommorow and steer clear of this thread, I think I have said my thoughts a hundred times over so I will just summarise. The club is in private hands, you are right, they can do what the f*ck they like, if it wasn't for the mass hysteria of love for Cortese than I probably wouldn't give a toss. But it winds me up and irritates me more that people cannot actually see the business model that he is building, and it is anything but a fan-friendly one... it's an aggressive profit making one... not a self-sufficient one... a profit making one. I am not prepared to be ripped off in order to get us into a league that to be honest, I couldn't give a toss if we never play there again, I like proper football, Championship or League 1, away from all the Americanised commercial cr@p, inflated wages and egos and rip-off prices. I am absolutely certain that the reason for no installment plan, no half-season tickets and a VERY restrictive season ticket window is to bully people out of having one. I also don't subscribe to the 'only 10% are on installments' . Nobody has added any other reasoning into why the tickets have been sold the way they are... people are quick to say " it's rubbish, you're wrong " but can't actually offer an alternative theory. The club have given reasons for not having the installment plan which are lies... I have proven this through my own research, now the club owes it to the fans to explain the REAL reasons that they stopped the plan, either that or facilitate the installment plan I have sourced which is at no cost to them. I think fans should have an expectation to be able to pay for their season ticket on installments if that is the way they have paid for it for the last 10 years, that's what people have budgeted for, people who say " well you should have budgeted for the full amount just incase " and " get a 0% credit card " live in a very unrealistic hazy bubble looking through rose tinted glasses... either that of they are pig ignorant. I personally love watching Saints, love the banter, love the drinking etc... I want success as much as the next person, but at what cost? Season tickets are not just about having a ticket to each game, they are about feeling part of the club, and having the benefits that go with it, be it priority for games etc etc... how nice it was last season sitting back feet up Wembley tickets in hand, whilst the rest of the city were scurrying around looking for spares. How nice it will be for STH's next season to have a chance of going down to Bournemouth for the game. As I said, I am not going to go on and on in this thread so will leave it to all the moneybags to tell everyone how rich they are and everyone should have a Gold Card on 0% interest. As I said on this thead... It is common knowledge that Cortese sees Southampton as his baby, but it's about time he stopped treating its supporters like children.

It's not just about that though is it? I will pay per game unless I will the lottery, I will make a point of making sure I do less than 10 home games though so Cortese doesn't get more revenue out of me. It's also the benefits you get from being a season ticket holder... like Bournemouth away for example... no season ticket means no chance of going to it. Non-priority for any Wembley/Play-off games etc etc... Oh... and then there is the cost...

I will keep hold of this post when you are paying £50 a pop in the Premiership in a few years time and see if you still feel the same. Some of the people on here I will be watching their posts very hard, because there is bound to be a large amount of you that prove yourself to be total hypocrites when things start going wrong. Like I have said before... " on the pitch, on the pitch " - " w@nkers, w@nkers " - That was the day I realised how fickle and hypocritical our support was. This thread proves my thoughts were correct.

You mean like on my serious running route thread? I suggest you infract yourself.