stevegrant

It was probably too wide on the right for a right-footer. That said, it never stopped Beckham or Le Tiss...

I also agree to a point. However, football is such a competitive industry these days, where the smallest advantages count for so much. The likes of West Ham scandalously cheated their way to Premier League survival and it ended up only costing them £20m when they stood to lose more than double that if they were relegated. You can guarantee that any other club in our situation would be doing everything possible to avoid a points deduction, and therefore I have no reason to argue against SFC from doing likewise. If people don't like us, meh, big deal. We don't make the rules, the Football League knew about our ownership structure when we were relegated in 2005 and gave it the thumbs-up then, and they also knew about the loophole that may become evident if we were to have financial problems. They chose not to close that loophole - it's their problem.

But then they'd have just asked the club to do so, rather than spending a fortune trying to prove that they are the same... I'm with Jimmy_D on this one, I reckon they're ****ting themselves because they've got nothing on us and so they announce that they're going to get some forensic accountants to look into it but that it might take weeks, which allows time for the season to finish, where they'll be hoping we get relegated anyway, so they can just brush it all under the carpet and pretend it never happened. We could make the next few months very very uncomfortable for the Football League here...

There hasn't been a single suggestion of anything illegal, or even that the club has misled or lied to the Football League, so I'd watch the libel line if I were you. When we were relegated, the Football League were clearly satisfied with the structure we had in place at the time, otherwise we wouldn't have been issued with the "golden share" that every club gets as a member of the league. They knew the score then so you can be sure they know the score now. They even had the opportunity to close the loophole when Derby went into administration a few years ago but chose not to - perhaps they didn't expect to be in that situation again, who knows, but they missed a trick there.

Christ :smt017 I'm not sure they'll necessarily need "full" access - they'll be able to get copies of the various accounts from Companies House for £1 each, which may be sufficient. Quite why the FL couldn't do that in the first place is a bit baffling really.

Surprise, surprise, they've bottled making a decision. They're clearly hoping we go down anyway so they can just brush it all under the carpet. It'll be very very interesting to see what happens if we manage to stay up...

I would disagree. £2.5m of our revenue this season has gone on paying off the overdraft. Were it not for said overdraft, the club would have an extra £2.5m in its coffers. The wage bill has been cut pretty much in half - we're now running at about 50% of turnover, which is a perfectly stable amount. The only other liabilities are in the stadium mortgage, which is comfortably covered by season ticket sales. It's been suggested that Barclays would settle for a reasonable percentage of their debt as a full and final settlement. If, for argument's sake, they accept an offer of 60%, that means whoever wishes to buy the club will have to raise £2.46m to pay off that debt. It's possible that they may need to find another £1m or so to act as working capital while season ticket sales are carried out (the money initially gets ring-fenced for the mortgage payment) but in theory, now there's been a clean sweep, optimism among the fanbase will rise and fans will return, which will make the club self-sustainable once more.

Worth bearing in mind that Forest brought about 2500 down for that game whereas I suspect Charlton barely had 500.

Let's put it this way, if "nothing" is what we get then SFC ceases to exist, it really is as simple as that. Therefore, "something better than nothing" clearly is accurate, otherwise there is no club for us to support from that point forward.

Spot on. The supporter groups, such as the one that "derry" is trying to piece together, clearly aren't going to have as much money behind them as some of the other names who have been linked, but they're declaring their interest so that there is a "Plan Z" if all else fails. If nobody with serious money on their own steps up to the plate, who else is there if you completely disregard groups of supporters who are doing their best to get something together? Surely something is better than nothing...

1730 from Wandsworth Common, gets into Watford Junction at 1820... £5.30, bargain

I would be stunned if any potential buyers weren't aware of the situation and/or hadn't factored possible/probable relegation to League One into their plans.

Latest update: Quite a few payments waiting to clear into the bank account - once I've identified which ones these are (they don't show on the statement until they've cleared, which is irritating), I'll be able to give everyone a bit more information and possibly open up some more places. The vast majority have paid, so thanks to everyone who has done so. I'll keep you posted

I think that whichever way the Football League decide, it will be decided at tomorrow's meeting. They won't want it to drag on like the Leeds saga did last season. I can see it from both points of view, the club believe they have a watertight legal case which should see us safe from the points deduction based on the letter of the law - it's the Football League's fault that the loophole exists, it's not as if it's not been known about for years - Spurs first exploited it in 1983, albeit for different reasons, and we did the same when we floated in 1997. On the other hand, I think we'd be shouting from the rooftops if we were relegated because another team were in our position and ended up staying up at our expense, so a points deduction wouldn't be unjustified.

Nick Illingsworth on SSN now, time for the forum to go into meltdown...

Indeed... 1994 called and asked for its news back

If you fancy a slightly longer walk/stumble, there's always the Winston on the corner of Hill Lane and Archers Road. And yes, the past in the Park Hotel is best forgotten...

The Standard is independent of the Daily Mail these days - sold to the Russians for the princely sum of £1.

The England band are pretty much universally hated. We're more than capable of creating an atmosphere without adding a band; for that reason, I'm out.

AFC Bournemouth paid a six-figure sum to Begbies Traynor when they were appointed as their administrator last year.

As far as I can tell, the stadium is "owned" by St Mary's Stadium Ltd - the stadium appears on the balance sheet of that subsidiary company, as does the debt associated with it. It receives income direct from Southampton Football Club Ltd, net of VAT, which is for "the provision of football entertainment". This essentially includes all matchday income. The players' wages are paid for by SFC Ltd (NOT by the PLC) in accordance with League rules.

While I can empathise with the sentiment, now is very much NOT the time to be hitting "friendly fire" - everyone needs to be pulling as one right now. That particular argument can wait.

Anyone reckon the Euro Millions will see a massive surge in ticket sales in the SO postcode area in the next three weeks?

Lowe, Wilde and Crouch would initially have got nothing, although SISU did have a separate pot with which they were willing to buy out the major shareholders at the same price as their placing purchase (40p per share, which I think was 10p below the market price at the time) if they didn't want to remain as shareholders with little or no control. Whether they'd have been able to sell their shares to anyone else after SISU took over, who knows.

Their offer would have injected somewhere between £10m and £12m (£12m less various legal fees) directly into the company, in exchange for a "50% + 1 share" shareholding. It would have diluted all existing shareholders' holdings with no opportunity to purchase additional shares to maintain their percentage holding. That, in my opinion, is the main reason why the "big 3" rejected it. I may be wrong, but that's my belief.