RinNY

Don't compare us to Leeds and Luton: they actually did cheat. Anyone familiar with our accounts would know that we have always run a balanced player sales/player purchases sheet; if anything, we've taken in more than we have spent that way. Our financial difficulties are due to building a stadium that would enable us to compete financially in the Prem, and then getting relegated a couple of seasons later. Between trying to pay for that stadium, for other Prem class facilities, being obliged to stand by player wages contracts made in the Prem that we could no longer afford in the CCC, and trying to maintain a team that could compete in the CCC, AND then getting hit by the recession which changed how our banks (mortgage and overdraft) viewed their relationship with us, we were f*cked without having done anything irresponsible, and certainly without cheating! This guy Hearns doesn't know what he's talking about. Ignore.

Why would it matter how much was paid for the club? I believe that, according to one of the statements by Fry and/or Lynam, it is specified as part of the deal that the price will never be disclosed. The thing is, so long as Fry and the creditors are willing to accept the money offered, that's all that counts. And we have been assured that they do accept it, meaning that they are collectively and individually getting enough of what is owed to them that they are willing to take it and walk away from SFC leaving no more debt burden. Just be glad about that, eh? The exact sum is basically irrelevant to us fans. More importantly, Lynam assures us in his statement that, while SFC has to run as a business standing on its own two feet, the owner is going to be willing and able to stump up money for investments in the team that the professional football people running the team, who will include MLT in an important capacity, deem necessary. That, surely, is excellent news all around. Why not take that and stop worrying about the sum of the takeover deal?

True, but according to the Times he was worth more that 150million a couple of years ago: "Gavyn Davies, who resigned as chairman of the BBC after the Hutton Inquiry, is ranked 254th, with £157 million." I guess he may have lost a bit in the downturn & recession, but even so, he could no doubt afford to commit 20-25 million to SFC over the next couple of years, if he wanted to. Anyway, this is just rank speculation. I suppose we'll find out eventually who Pinnacle's "wealthy investor" is ...

I read somwhere that he supposedly had a "net worth" in excess of 100million. I would have thought that, if true, would be plenty.

Well, in that Echo article is says that Pinnacle have been negotiating on behalf of "a wealthy investor" , so your hope may be coming true already! Apparently the whole "consortium" thing is for show, with Lynam, MLT, and whoever else may be involved there as front men, negotiators, facilitators, and such, but there is one seriously wealthy figure behind it all putting up the dosh. Cue the speculation as to who this is. First guess: could it finally be Gavyn Davies putting his money where his mouth ("I won't let SFC die") is?

Oh, I'm not doubting the OP: I'd just like to see some definite confirmation from some kind of official source or named source. Is Channon8 Mick Channon's son, by any chance? I seem to recall him posting on this board or S4E under some such name a few years back. If so, he'd be likely to have some real knowledge ...

Is there any definite confirmation of this?? I see nothing on the OS, the Echo site, or SkySports. Can anyone give a secure source that this is genuinely happening?? I'm bloody delighted if it is real, of course!

I don't know who or what is meant by posts that are "anti Salz", unless it is anti Salz to point out that there are, according to reports, only three consortia in play to purchase Saints, and that Salz is not known to be involved with any of them, and hence is irrelevant to this whole discussion. At present, the Jackson/Green group seem to be the ones most prepared to go through with a purchase. I don't envy them, if they do, having to confront the "united" fan base who will "get behind them" by -- as we can see here before they have even gotten to exclusive status -- slagging them off unmercifully. It might occur to all of you that, whatever his faults are, Jackson has done now what Salz has never done: helped get together a consortium that is in ACTUAL TALKS to purchase Saints. After all these posts, the evidence for any Salz group of potential purchasers appears to come down to this: Salz is a friend of Gavin Davies; the Sun reports that Davies has said he won't let Saints die. So I'd just like to know, from the folks who keep bringing up Salz: you got anything more than that, or are you just relying on the SUn? Or better: if Salz really has a consortium of rich friends willing to buy Saints -- then where are they? Why aren't they in the process? I know, some of you have suggested that at present the asking price is too steep, and they're waiting for it to go down. Isn't that lovely. So these rich "saviors" actually don't have the money to make a purchase, aren't bothered about waiting for Saints situation to get even worse and more desperate before they cautiously think of spending some money, and yet we are to see in them our true saviors while anyone else making a bid is useless. I'll expect a Salz bid when we've dropped to the Conference then, in a few years. Meanwhile, I'd just like to know, if there is a consortium that genuinely puts up the millions required to buy SFC and save the club from extinction, why will people here not support it, just because someone they don't like or despise is part of that consortium? Because, evidently, old dislikes and feuds are more important than the club being saved ... And for what it's worth, I have no axe to grind: I'll support anyone who saves SFC, be it Jackson & co, the Pinnacle lot, the "overseas" crowd, Salz, Davies, Crouch, Lowe, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all, or anyone you care to name. Because it's about the club continuing to exist!

My, you don't bother to read, do you? My words "Salz and his contacts are not overseas, are they?" You see how I include Salz's contacts there? How I doubt that his contacts are overseas, but by putting it as a question, allow for the possibility for anyone who is bigging up Salz -- if they REALLY know something, rather than just trying to sound important -- to correct me? You, on the other hand, since you criticise without bothering to read the words you are criticising, are clearly just a fool. The question is: is Salz behind/involved with one of the three known consortia bidding or preparing to bid for Saints? Indications are he is not. Then what possible reason, other than wanting to sound important/knowledgeable, does anyone have for bringing him up? In 3 years and more he has done NOTHING for Saints. And by reasons for bringing him up, I don't mean something someone whose name cannot be mentioned heard from someone else whose name cannot be mentioned about what someone else again claimed to know. I mean actual information. Because I have to say the empty speculation quotient on this board would sink a battleship, indeed a fleet of battleships!

Salz and his allies? I notice a number of posts on this thread suggesting that Salz and some anonymous group of allies/backers are in play to potentially take Saints over, but I'd like to know what factual basis, what evidence there is, for this notion? Salz has supposedly been working on investment for Saints since Crouch's brief chairmanship at least, and the result has been: nothing! There is, so far as I have seen, not the faintest hint from the adfministrators that any group of which Salz is some sort of Facilitator/figurtehead is in play. Fry has, so far as news reports are to be trusted, only three groups who have shown any serious intention: the Pinnacle group (which so far as I know doesn't involve Salz), the Jackson/Green group (which certsainly doesn't incolve Salz), and the "mystery overseas" group (but Salz and his contacts are nor, surely, "overseas"). So why are people trailing the Salz red herring across this topic?? If Salz had even the remotest interest/ability/contacts to do anything for Saints other than show up to games and sit in the directors' box (though not a director), he has had more than enough time and opportunity to do so and has in fact done, to all appearance, jacksh*t! Sure, by all accounts Salz has wealthy friends: but if those wealthy friends had even the slightest interest in putting some of that wealth to use saving SFC, there has been no sign of it. Face facts: Salz's friends DO NOT CARE ABOUT SAINTS! If someone really knows different, give us some facts, but for chrissakes stop muddying the waters with this vague bullsh*t about Salz waiting in the wings for the "right time" to save Saints. The right time has come and gone, and Salz has shown NOTHING, NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING!!!!!! Sheesh!

You know, Wilde put about 2 million of his own money into buying into Saints, and I can't conceive of any reason for him to have done that other than his stated one of wanting to help the club and get it back to the Prem. He has now lost all that money, since the shares he bought are now worthless. You may feel that's his own fault, due to mismanagement, poor choice of executives to run SFC, wrongly associating himself with Lowe's attempt to turn SFC around which proved disastrous, etc. But I don't see any reason to be so bitter about a man who lost so much money trying to do the club some good, or to engage in schadenfreude at his expense. Seems to me that Wilde was not as smart as most of us thought/hoped when he took over. Seems to me he trusted some people he shouldn't have. Seems to me that, unless he is just a fantasist, he must have been seriously misled by some rich people who told him they would invest in SFC if Lowe were ousted, but never in fact did so. None of that makes him bad or evil. Seems to me that Patrick Trant proclaimed that he would put money into SFC as part of Wilde's board, but never in fact did so: no-one ever seems to blame him for this ... just as an example of how Wilde was misled and by whom. Wilde wasn't a successful club chairman, either the first time or the second time; Lowe wasn't a successful chairman either, especially second time round; Crouch seems to have been over optimistic as a chairman too. But it is facile to just scapegoat them, and not look further afield into the unwillingness of anyone (other than Crouch and Wilde) to put serious money into SFC. It's not clear to me why this is, as other football clubs seem to be able to attract investment from wealthy fans without too much difficulty. However, as upset as we obviously all have been at two relegations, and now the fiscal collapse of the club, I don't see how venting so much anger and scorn at one of the only two men who was genuinely weilling to risk his money on Saints makes any sense.

Having read this board and its predecessor for a good 6 years or so now, I will be absolutely amazed if any new regime, however willing & able to invest, and however devoted to the interests of SFC, receives anything remotely resembling united support. There are those on this forum -- who I will leave nameless here and now, but I'm sure any regular reader can fill in a few names -- who are never happy unless they are carping and criticising and forecasting gloom and wrongdoing. I just don't see that changing: the tiger does not change its stripes. As an optimist, I have always tried to think the best of each regime, each manager, each player, and supported them on the assumption that they want only success for the club as do I. That lets one in for disappointments along the way, obviously; but I'll certainly continue to give my support, for what its worth, to anyone who takes on the task of maintaining SFC and taking the club forward.

I'm sure Barclays Bank and Norwich Union would rather have nothing than 35p on the pound instead of 45p on the pound ... NOT! That is not how banks work. I think in Leeds' admin. the creditors ended up with about 7p on the pound, and considered themselves lucky to get that. If Fry knows his business and there is really someone out there willing to buy, a deal will get done, because the banks want some money out of this: it's just a matter of how much they can get.

Just looking at that link, it appears Fry is actually talking about the Pinnacle bid, saying that a deal [with Pinnacle] is now unlikely. It seems to be taking him out of context to suggest that no sale to anyone at all is now likely. Would be good to see a clear and complete statement, rather than these uncontextualised one-liners.

For what it's worth, Fiorentina went out of business completely about 7 or 8 years ago, were relergated in reconstituted form to the Italian 4th division, and are now up in 4th place in the Italian League and in the Champion's League. So there is always hope, even in the darkest times.

I don't see the point of ranting at the players like this. How do you expect them to "bleed for the club", when the club is quite likely to turn around and sell them to another club at a moment's notice? You're living in the past: in the old days before the modern transfer system, players spent their careers at one club and identified with it, and bled for it. Nowadays, they know they are just temporary hirelings, and they behave as the mercenaries the modern game has turned them into. How could they do anything else? And let's face it, unless a player is a loyal genius, like MLT, or a colorful and all action scrapper like a Franny Benali, the fans turn on the players the moment they have a dip in form (sometimes even without that), so why should they put themselves out for the fans? If I were McGoldrick, for example, and I read this forum, I certainly wouldn't give a sh*t about the fans who slagged me off constantly. Get over it, it's the way the game is now. Our players were not quite good enough, not quite well enough organized and trained and led, and were demoralized at the end by all the fiscal woes. Slagging them off this way is just pointless.

Have you ever dealt wth lawyers? Those guys will go on talking and haggling over the precise legal wording of documents for ever. It's down to the legal terminology and the contracts: which means that either side can still walk away if their lawyers see something they don't like and they can't agree on compromise wording.

If the Echo is right, it isn't about the money any more: that's been agreed in principle it seems. It's the lawyers arguing over legal niceties, tying up all the contracts, and so on. And that kind of thing can, unfortunately, lead to breakdowns in talks all too easily. Let's just hope. I'm encouraged to see that the Echo reckons these mystery foreign bidderrs want to pool resources with the Pinnacle bid: the more money the takeover group have behind them, the better for the club!

No, I don't; which again is why it seems to me that they are not involved in this and just are not interested in putting any money into Saints under any circumstances, as I have long thought.

Hence my use of "seems"; but this NDA business doesn't seem to have stopped a variety of names becoming public. I remain skeptical about these purported fans.

Know what I find interesting? Amidst all this talk of Jackson & Green & Lynam & MLT & mystery foreign bidders, there are some notable and highly touted supposed "wealthy Saints fans" missing. No Salz, no Frost, no Gavyn Davies. As I have long suspected, even while people were going on and on about how these guys would step in and put Saints back on the map if only Lowe were no longer around, the plain truth seems to be that they are not interested in Saints beyond having a chance to watch the odd game from the Directors' box, probably for free! Very revealing of who the true fans are. Gotta give even the likes of Jackson some kudos on that score.

I know nothing about this guy Lynam and have no preconceptions about him one way or the other. That said, in one of the articles about this deal in the Echo, it says he is a good friend of MLT, which could explain why he might be the middle man in a deal for the Saints. The other possibility is that whoever these "local property developers" are, who are said to be behind this deal (again in another Echo article I read), they may be in the habit of occasionally using Lynam's professional services. The thing is, we don't know, and with all due respect neither does Guided Missile, despite the facts he has dug up about Lynam's company. Fry is a professional at this stuff: if he has seen enough to go ahead with negotiations with Lynam, then it seems most reasonable to suppose that there is real money behind Lynam, whatever the source. Fry doesn't get paid to waste his time with the penniless.

I'm not sure why that Echo article is supposed to be so depressing. It says that Fry is in the closing stages of negotiation with the group fronted by Pinnacle's Tony Lynam, essentially, and that barring last minute hitches a deal could be conmfirmed by late Wednesday. That sounds, on the face of it, distinctly hopeful. Now admittedly, while we know that Lynam is fronting and MLT is supporting this bid, we also know that the real money men behind it are "local property developers" and we don't know who they are or how mch money they really have, which could be a concern. But Lynam talks in another article of a "five year business plan" to get Saints back to the Prem, and if MLT believes in this it would seem at least to be more than mere talk! No? So why the doom and gloom??

I thought the 10 oint deduction was a crazy and inquitous idea hen it was applied to fiscally strapped clubs in the past; I thionk it is iniquitous applied to us; I do not see it as great news that it may be applied to any other clubs. It's a classic case of taking a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. The kind of fiscal manipulations by the likes of Leicester, or irresponsibility of the Leeds variety, could and should have been dealt with on an individual club by club and case by case basis, not by creating this absurd punishment for any and every club that hits hard times. Far from protecting fair competition -- which is how that fool Mawhinney justifies it -- it demolishes fair competition!

What? Talk about revisionist history! When Redknapp took over there was every chance of safety. When we were 2-0 up against Villa in the penultimate game of the season, we were all but safe: until we collapsed. Nothing to do with Redknapp indeed: you must be a new fan or have no memory at all!