VectisSaint

GM, how can you call yourself a Saints fan and post thgis pile of **** and then immediately log off. Hopefully TL will not read your drivel and will try to conclude a deal, because the alternative as any sane person realises is oblivion.

Please don't let any facts get in the way of your argument. so you still believe that our backer lives at home with his Mum. The stalling is because they are trying to get a deal that allows us to have a chance of existing in the future. This is not some computer game, it is real life, and no-one is going to save us unless they have a reasonable business case to work with. But there, go on try to make the only chance we have look stupid, and see where that gets us.

Why do they owe you clarity and transparency? They are doing their best in an awful situation to save this club from extinction, we don't need clarity and transparency right now, what we need is cool heads concluding this deal, which as far as I can see is still possible, although less likely than I would personally like. There is no other deal, if Pinnacle had not been around we would have been dead 4 weeks ago. I guess maybe that would have saved our sanity a little, but at least they are trying which is more than you can say for anyone else. But there, bright people like you think its cool to diss them and pretend there is an alternative. In fact TL has been as open as anyone could be in this situation, possibly a little more than he should have been, but some of that is clearly being brought on by knuckleheads emailing him, texting him and generally ****ing him off. Meanwhile he tries his best to keep people in the loop and gets insults in return. P have not "led us a merry dance" they have stumped up about a million quids as far as I know, do you really really think they did that just to **** off you and your mates? FFS, some people need to take a reality pill and get off people's cases. This time next week we will either have Pinnacle in charge or we will have ceased to exist, we will be pushing up daisies, bereft of lfe.

Because quite simply their offer, if it even exists, wasn't even on the table. There are some plonkers on here who think that Mr Fry is not a professional who has investigated all of the options and concluded that the best, most viable option was and remains Pinnacle. Anyone who thinks the Swiss or Jackson would be as viable are living in cloud cuckoo land. What we really need now is idiots rubbishing Pinnacle, because the more you do the more likely they will withdraw, and as they are the only real show in town you really need to pray that they don't, because otherwise it is all over for Saints. Maybe it is already, it certainly looks like it may be, and for that ultimately there are 2 people to thank, Lowe and Wilde.

God you really have to despair with some people on here. Thanks a lot Pinnacle, for being the only ones with even a sniff of a chance of saving this club from extinction. When will some of you wake up and realise that without Pinnacle there is no Southampton, and that is thanks to 2 people, Rupert Lowe and Mike Wilde. BWP and Saga leaving, so what, Saga was going anyway and BWP is ****. There are bigger things happening than a couple of crap players leaving the Club.

You seem to forget that Sky and BBC partly fund the FL, they will not rock the boat and risk losing their TV rights, or having them increased in value.

Don't know why peops are getting in a lather about this, when its blidingly obvious, the other gentleman dipping his hand in his pocket is Crouch. There may be others as well. TL clearly stated a couple of weeks back that originally the consortium consisted of 5 people, but gradually they all dropped out except one, but as he said that was a good thing in many ways as there would not be arguments amongst the different backers. My view still remains that unless Pinnacle sign this deal then there will be no SFC next season. The game is over, it is too late for any Swiss or Jacksons to do anything now, and in any case they also could not complete the deal because the problem is with the creditors, who will not agree until they have guarantees from the FL,which they will not get.

In general this is true, rules of a Member Club can say anything they want if agreed by the members, with one exception. That is if the rules require members to break the law. So everything to do with points deductions is perfectly legitimate, but if they say a member must avoid paying tax or will only be accepted if they promise to take drugs, for example, then that is technically illegal. There must be something in the contract that the FL is insisting on us signing that Pinnacle lawyers or our creditors are seeing as a requirement to break the law, either commercial or criminal - but then of course it becomes a matter of interpretation and presumably the FL lawyers see things differently. This is why it is taking time to resolve, anything involving lawyers takes time as they have to be seen to be providing best advice (aka making as much money) as possible.

Could, doesn't mean they will of course. Most of the players probably have no other offers on the plate, and most of what we have no they are probably better off seeing this through. After all most of them are the under achievers that got us relegated in the first place. But you are right about the ordinary staff. But I guess they know where they stand because TL has spoken with them.

They don't say how many hours, perhaps they meant within about 720 hours at the end of May, they could still be correct, if things move on apace now

"a highly successful entrepreneur who has built a multi-billion pound empire “using lashings of debt” in just seven years" Oh my God, sounds great...

But thats the point. Currently we are not members, we are applying to become members. On top of that we were also one of 20 clubs who almost destroyed the FL by breaking away and forming the Premier League in 1991. The FL will never forgive those 22 clubs who broke their monopoly on professional football in England and who destroyed their cash cow. Funnily enough Leeds were also among the 22, and they have had top rate treatment fF

The FA run the PL, so how do you think the FA could help? If you think the FL are bad, the FA are a bunch of shambolic amateurs, after all they even thought appointing Lowe to their board was a good idea. As for Sultana, bloody good riddance. They were crap, and no-one with any sense was going to pay for 2 subscriptions.

No that is the whole point, it is not all that is at stake here, as TL and several others have pointed out on numerous occassions. There are other legal issues to be resolved as well, and this would be no different for anyone else. The issue is with Barclays or one or more of the other creditors, not just the FL issue, which on the face of it seems close to resolution. Any other party coming in now, would not be able to complete for weeks (3 at least), and until they can then we have no entry into the FL, we also cannot pay staff later this week. The Pinnacle deal is our one and only chance, and the sooner people realise this the better. That said I don't see Pinnacle standing aside now, all the vibes coming from them are that they will complete the deal and pay the wages this week.

I really fail to see what good it would do right now, other than satisfy curiousity. There is no issue with the man behind the deal as far as we can tell, the financials are clearly not an issue. By outing himself, he (or she I guess) simply opens himself up to all sorts of other issues, including impacts on any other business interests. I seriously doubt that we will learn any more until the deal is done, or not as the case may be. Only then will Gavin Davies/Rod Stewart/Paul Allen/Phil Collins/Andrew Lloyd Webber/Richard Branson/Max Mosely/Manfred Mann/Leon Crouch/Peter Crouch/Uncle Tom Cobley or whoever be named.

Nothing at all. On the other hand, no other party can satisfy our creditors until they are given guaranteed FL membership either so any other deal is also dead in the water. You'd better hope that Pinnacle do a deal, the alternative is an entry into the Wessex League.

If we were called West Ham the League would not be involved. And if you think the League are a problem, then the FA are far far worse.

Actually I don't believe we will. We will have cleared our debts in full and have a mortgage on the stadium as we had before. I don't believe anywhere is it agreed that the mortgage or any part of it has been or will be paid off. I would expect that Aviva will agree to a restructuring of the mortgage, but unless Pinnacle have actually agreed to pay the whole thing off I imagine that we will still have a mortgage in the end. I do howver believe that all the real creditors will have been paid in full, that is Barclays Bank and anyone who has had payments blocked since Lowe went over the agreed o/d limit in April.

True, but many people have Sky these days.

As they have since the 17th June when it was last updated.

You are absolutely right. The FL are not scared, we will lose any appeal, whether we have a case or not. And to all those who keep spouting that the FL are breaking the law or whatever, they are not, they are running a Members Club in accordance with the rules of that Club. No-one is being forced to act illegally in any way, shape or form. BUT, it does seem that what Pinnacle are looking to confirm is at least the right to appeal, and that is an altogether different matter. Mawhinney did state that we had the right to appeal, and it seems now thats what Pinnacle are trying to confirm. I doubt very much that they would actually appeal, because they are not that dumb (I hope) because the result of the appeal is a foregone conclusion. But to sign away the right of appeal sets a dangerous precendent for SFC and all other member clubs in the future and leaves us open to further punishments. All IMHO of course.

Agreed. As mentioned in the Guardian on Friday, the sticking point is with our Creditors, not directly with the FL (though the FL clearly hold the key to unblocking these issues). We need updates from the FL, then and only then can we make progress with the Creditors (I assume Barclays). I can see this process taking a few more days yet, meanwhile I have chewed my fingernails down to the elbow.

In my opinion the most compelling piece of reporting was in the Guardian last Friday, and is probably as close to the mark as anything else. It points to the issue being the creditors and not the FL, which makes sense to me at least. i don't recall anyone mentioning this one until yesterday when I posted it on other threads. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/jun/19/southampton-takeover-pinnacle-consortium

How is it a "massive conflict of interest". It would be total madness if the FL Board did not comprise members who represented members interests, i.e. the Clubs. The member Clubs have voted for the representatives to sit on the Board (including Saints), together with the executive (professional administrative) members. This is absolutely no different to when Wiseman and then Lowe sat on the FA Premier League Board - they were elected there by their peers (quite why in the case of Lowe is beyond me but there we are). Almost every Members Club in the country is organised in a similar way, committees of members elected by the members. Clearly with something of the nature of the FL, some professional administrators are also appointed, plus some figureheads/buffoons such as Mawhinney.

People continue to see this as a Legal issue and therefore continue to miss the point. The issue is not "legal" it is an issue with regards to the rules of a Members Club. Those rules are set by the members (of whcih SFC was one, possibly isn't at the moment) and all members are bound by those rules. It has been demonstrated time and again in many sports that any court of arbitration or the like always (or nearly always) finds for the sporting body in question, because there is an understanding (and a perfectly reasonable one) that lawyers should not interfere with sporting regulations in any way. the only exception is where Clubs regulations would incite members to act illegally. To appeal against the 10 point deduction is completely futile, and is not the issue at hand. The issue is that our creditors have refused to sign a deal with Pinnacle until they have guarantees about our FL membership from the FL. This is what the FL are due to discuss today, and yes it probably depends on Pinnacle agreeing not to appeal, something which Pinnacle would be mad to do anyway because they would lose.