St Marco

Think this one is near to the truth as they do have connections to the city and it goes with what "those people who talk" have been saying. It would explain why people like John and Rasiak are still here, however does not quite fit with what Wotte said about Thomas, maybe they did not say they would pump millions in? Guess time will tell how much of all of these rumours are true and how many are bull****. But please god for the love of christ let this be true. It just makes me even more angry that we had a month with a bunch of muppets in Pinnacle wasting time, they could of almost put us down for the count. So monday we should know then, finally.

So looks as though the rumours were true and it will all be done by monday then. Hopefully we will be able at long last to leave the whole sorry saga that has been the past 5 years well and truely in the past. There will be no hangers on from the old regime except Wotte. Maybe they will move him back to his old role once it is all sorted.

I just wish the people who have that "evidence" would print it once and for all so that this guy and Tony can **** off and never be heard from again. Seriously again ask yourself this. If this guy knows people with hundreds of millions of pounds, or is so chummy with them that they would give him 33% of the buyout then why can he not get a job with one of them? Why have those supposed multi-millionaires not put investment of that magnitude in his hands before? Why has his company got just a 20k turnover, i make nearly three times that.... and finally if he is that good at business, that well trusted, has that many contacts, why is he living with his mum? Surely they would have given him a job which in turn would of meant he could afford to move out? The guy is looking for his 10 minutes of fame and he had it.

The FL said in their response "To proceed, all it needed to do was to provide clarification in regard to funding and sign the contract". Which leads me to believe the points scenario had been resolved. The FL say that they had to waiver the right to appeal sporting sanctions. The sporting sanctions were the minus 10. For more to be added would mean we would have had to broke other rules which we have not. If i remember right we have not signed a CVA. If we did sign one and we come out of admin only to go back into admin a month later then naturally we would get more points put on for breaking the CVA agreement. It is all buts and ifs. If the group really did have the money and really did take it serious then they would not be investing money with the thought we will be back in admin anytime soon. Which again from a business view just makes me believe more then ever they had no real plans nor any real money, they used the deduction issue as the excuse to get out of it as i predicted the momment it was raised. What makes me wonder even more is where has this "we will get more points deducted" thing come from? Who has said that will happen? The Football League or the guys who kept telling us the deal would be done today for weeks?

I would guess a rolling contract. It is better then having nobody to try and sort it out. But when/if the new deal goes through i hope he will return to youth manager.

Ask yourself this question mate What difference would having -10 or -15 points have to someone wanting to pay millions and millions of pounds to buy a business? How would that effect their return? It would make no difference at all. The line they used about caring for the club and it's fans also does not fit into it because how does that effect us? It doesn't. The truth is people with millions who wish to buy a company do so for one reason and one reason alone, to make money. Having an additional 5 points would not have a negative impact on the ability to do that. Wasting time when the team needs sorting would be far more impactful on the finances. Rushed deals mean spending more money to try and catch up etc.. What we have here is a guy who is seriously deluded. He gives himself away in his remarks. Why would a multi-millionaire give someone 33% ownership of a company? If they were that good friends or he was that trusted in a circle of business men would they not offer him a job in one of their companies which in turn enabled him to afford to move out? The reality is the guy is a dreamer who is talking complete and utter bull****. Both the Football League and Fry have basically painted a picture of a un-proffesional group who had no verification on their funds. They were asked to show that they could verify the funds and they pulled out after a week of having the contract. Coincidence? There was no money and there was no backers. They made it up in the hope someone would take interest of seeing both his and Tony's name in the press and invest in the group. They tried to delay and delay as much time as possible by talking about problems with the football league which did not excist. Eventually they were found out.

I wont say bad things about Matt as he does not deserve them. Tony and his friend Fialka tricked him (or conned if you will) into believing they had a backer who had money who would offer him the chairmanship position. They tricked us all and im sure they are both down the pub ****ing themselves about how gullable we have all been. Matt always did and always will act with his heart towards Southampton. If there was just 1% that something could come of the Pinnacle deal that could save Saints then we would all do it and that is what Matt did. It was not his fault it was not a real bid.

I was one of the first to question the Pinnacle group that does not mean anything, it is about common sense. The reality is if Leon had hundreds of millions he would give it to the club. How many times do we hear "i love saints so much" by people but yet when it comes to the crunch they magically disappear.? Do you really really believe someone such as Crouch would spend the best part of £2m of their money just to hang around or maybe get back into power? With that money he could probably buy a club further down and have full power, ever asked yourself why Saints? He supports the club and loves the club and is a guy doing what all of us would do if we were in that situation, using our own money to try and help. Leon has made mistakes at the club but they are so small it is laughable. I would trade in an instant what we have had for the last 12 months to go back to having Crouch as chairman and Pearson as manager. I'm sure everyone else now probably agrees. The point is Crouch has always had the clubs best interests at heart, you have to remember he has not taken 1 penny from the club. He always said as did the board previous to his that we need money or the club will go under. He was in talks with groups about takeovers, even the old board brought in the SISU bid. But one of the first things the Lowe group did the momment they got in was walk from those talks and they did not seek any more. From that momment this club was doomed a slow painful death and here we are. Crouch did all the right things as far as i can see. He deserves huge amounts of respect for what he has done and what he has continued to do. It sounds like he and MLT were conned but how many of us were the same? For a longtime all of us believed they would do it.

100% agree with Duncan as always. Im sorry Tony but you cannot expect people to have nothing but nice things to say to you and Filaka. You had no money and never looked like you would get the money. It was clear you used many different delaying tactics in an effort to try and buy yourself sometime to look for someone to put that money in. You might not like it but that is the same as a conman, someone who pretends to have something and lures in people into this false world. You said yourself numerous times that the deal was as good as done and would be completed today,tomorrow and the next day. Why say such things if in reality you actually knew you had no money and nobody was there to back you? As with Fialka how can people expect him to have millions and millions if the guy's company makes just 20k a year and he lives at home with his mum? That is not having a dig at him but at the sheer lunacy of the thought someone in that position could have hundreds of millions of pounds. It is no different from my nephew living at home with my aunt but he earns 20k from being a manager of a store. If someone said he was going to buy the club for millions everyone would know it was bull****, so why is this any different? You both played with fire and got your hands burnt. You deserve all the negative remarks being thrown at you both. You obviously have a lot to learn about being in buisness if you think people pull out of multi-million pound deals because someone said a negative remark...

As said above this is a joke right? You do realise that Crouch is actually the only person who has bothered to put his own money into the club to help keep it going even after losing over a million pounds the momment the club went into admin? Sorry but after everything that has happened with all the people who say they care about the club to be the only one who has put his money where his mouth is speaks volumes to me. As does it speak volumes as to what people are like who would try and knock him for it. Pure scum

Like others i questioned the legitamicy of the Pinnacle group and am not surprised one bit that they have officially pulled out now. It was obvious the group had no money and was searching to find that guy who would put his hand in his pocket. They never found that guy. They talked the talk but never walked the walk. Even when people like TL were on here saying the deal would be done most people towards the end sussed it out that he and the group were just time wasters. That is a horrible thing to say but that is what they are. People slag off that Marc Jackson guy but they did the same thing so thus must be labbeled the same. What i want to know now is who paid for the exclusivity period. Was it Crouch who paid it as rumoured or was it paid for by the Dyer sale? If that is true then how can a group get exclusivity when a player they have no financial control of is sold? The way i understand it the Pinnacle group have not actually paid anything towards the club, not helped pay wages nor paid for the exclusivity deal. Now the club is not dead it is in the exact same position it has been in for months. A club in admin looking for a new owner. We all wanted MLT to be chairman but that is not to be, a judging him on this whole fiasco then maybe thats not such a bad thing. The club have just got £1m from selling DMG. This must now give the club more time to find a buyer. Maybe Fry as he has been hinting for sometime was not convinced the Pinnacle bid was real and so waited before selling DMG until if/when it looked certain that deal would fall through. I strongly believe the club will still be in buisness this friday and strongley believe we will still be bought out eventually. The questions still remain the same as they have for months, by who and when? Nothing has changed at all except we now know the Pinnacle group were taking the **** all along.

Interesting wording by that guy. He said basically that Fry was now seeing the two other bids as "the more serious bids". Surely he would of have had to have spoken to fry to get to that belief? Plus a 4th group interested?! Let's just hope something is sorted out tomorrow and we can finally get back to looking at football news rather then politics.

Hang on a second nick i think you might have got yourself a bit confused. I said we were already in administration with Lowe at the helm in everything but name. How is/was it any different? The difference was he was still getting paid while others were losing their jobs. Supposedly we will be bought out by either Pinnacle or the Swiss guys tomorrow, at least that is what we are lead to believe. Being able to pay the bills once again is better then what Lowe left us with hence being in admin was better then not being. Soon as the deal is signed we will for the first time in many years actually go forwards. And you know you said Lowe would come back and save the club, i remember it very well, you were adament Crouch and Pearson had done so bad that Lowe and Wilde coming back would help the club recover from the mess he (Crouch) had made. Those who remember your words of then will verify it.

What like you said Lowe coming back would save the club you mean? Sorry nickh but as i said to you the last time you said it, the guy is a poor player. We are better for having the million pounds in my book. DMG will fall off the radar like so many other players supposedly destined for greatness have.

Probably ******** but at work rumour going round that Fry is in meeting now with the Swiss guy's until midday. Guess if true then chances are you would imagine they would place a proper bid some point today. Guess time will tell

5 mins to go then until 6pm, assume this is the time they will all be going away for their weekends.

To be fair though it is right what he says. If you go back 2 months when this group started to talk and tell us what they planned to do very few if any were against it. Everyone was in joy and assumed it would be a couple of weeks and it would all be done. We get the updates from people such as Tony and Matt about how it is going along nice, we all appreciate that they took the time to inform us. They then pay the exclusivity money, or if rumour is to be believed then leon Crouch paid it because it would pay the wages to staff etc. We then get the rumours which still have not been denied that Keegan would be manager and Matt would be chairman. People such as Tony then say it is all about to be concluded. Two weeks later as the exclusivity period is about to end all of a sudden it hits a brick wall because apparently we have got a minus 10 deduction for next season.....We are told not to worry we will sort it out in a day or so. That day comes and goes and we hear the same thing daily about being patient and was a matter of hours before it would be sorted. A week passes by and we find out the main man who we we're told "has a vast substantial wealth running into hundreds of millions of pounds" turns out to be a guy living at home with his mum and is on something like 50k a year working for a property company. Then to cap it off today we are told or lead to believe the deal will be concluded today and we can all start the party! But the guy who is in charge by the courts to get a deal done thinks the group are unnecessarily stalling and the minus 10 argument is not valid enough to keep giving them priority. etc etc Now lets get one thing straight here, the fans of thic club have suffered a lot over the past 5 years. We have gone from seeing a brand new stadium which hosed an England game, to being in a cup final and europe to plunging into the depths of hell. We have falled two leagues and find ourself a club ruined by total mismanagement from people only interested in themselves and their own gains. People who promised a lot but delievered the total opposite. We have seen these people before, these people have all but destroyed the club. So is it not understandable and acceptable that after the things we have been through, the amount of times people have tricked us over the years that the people who matter i.e the fans actually step on the side of caution? Pinnacle are the people who need to proove their loyalty to the cause not the fans. As of yet they have not put a penny in and it looks as though they never will. If the deal falls through wil you still believe what you believe? They need to put up or shut up and right now they have not put up nor shut up.

Got the game yesterday and love it! If your a boxing fan then you will be addicted to it too

I still think we will be bought out, just not now by Pinnacle, i would place money on it being the swiss group. Hopefully they can get MLT involved if they do.

Personally i read that thinking he is ****ed off with Pinnacles "stalling" and does not think the -10 issue is a valid reason to keep holidng off. To be fair to Mark Fry he is just doing his job and he did give Pinnacle an extra week to sort it out. You cannot blame him if Pinnacle were not what they wanted us to believe they were. Looking at it i think the Swiss group will now do the deal. They obviously showed him the cash yesterday and probably explained they would most likely accept the points deduction etc. and maybe that is why now he thinks no need for another exclusivity period. His wording just sounds nicer towards that group and not so nice towards Pinnacle. Either way if the deal is not done today from the Pinnacle group it probably never will be, they will join the longlist of people who have missled this club.

Indeed. But reading what he just said in his statement (which i did not see while i was writing my post) it would appear that he agrees that the -10 is a stalling excuse and not valid enough reason to give the group more time. What is interesting is his wording about the swiss group saying "On Thursday I met with the representatives of a bid that is coming from abroad and who have the funds available to complete a takeover" This to me says that yesterday he had a meeting with this group who obviously were serious enough to show the cash. Maybe they told him they will sign the paper regardless of the points deduction and will put a full bid in soon. This would explain why he has not agreed another exclusivity period because the deals are that close.

Well today is the day. The Pinnacle group now needs to put up or shut up. We have had them talking a good game for months now but yet the deal is not done. I like everyone else want this all to be sorted asap but can't help as others have said to feel this is all a wind up or a hoax. A group of chancers who have got a few million between them searching for that golden partner who has the money needed. The whole -10 thing was fishy from the start and looks more and more like a delay tactic to me, a way to give them more time to find that guy. Now that might sound a little harsh, might be untrue but we have to look at the facts. This whole episode has taken best part of 3 months to do. And even after all that time they are no closer to the deal being done. If Mark Fry believed they would get it done why has he asked the Swiss group and some middle eastern group to fly out to speak to him? Could they not have done that on the phone? In buisness £15m-£20m is nothing, Littlewoods only a few weeks ago paid £15m for the Woolworths name. For someone with "many hundreds of millions of pounds" would they see the -10 as a deal breaker, the fact they can't appeal as a deal breaker? Would they see that as a way to stop them from getting millions from the club? No chance. Now that might be unfair on the group, they might not deserve criticism for the work they are putting in which in turn will secure the longterm future of the club we all care about. And at the end of the day that is what it is about, the club. And right now it is at it's worst. We are near to playing our pre-season friendlies without any idea of who will be manager, which players will have a new contract, which coaching staff will remain or who will come in. I heard a story our goal keeping coach was now working down the docks now...We have no idea of what ticket prices will be, what players will be bought or sold, what the board will looklike, what staff will stay on and if they all will? Right now they have not been paid for a month etc etc So my message for Pinncale is that enough is enough. You come on here or on Sky with you cryptic messages such as today's one which looks the same as the ones we have had for months now. A lot of people think that today will come and go and it will be another excuse wheeled out as to why it hasen't, maybe put some blame in a another organisation such as the Football League etc. If you care about the club as much as you say you do or as much as you want us to believe then please for the love of god just sign those documents and bring this whole sorry episode to an end. Lets move on from this and start doing the real important work of re-building our club. The hard work has not even started yet.

Total legend, the world will never see another artist able to sell 70m+ records for 1 album most likely. True musical genius in the same light as Elvis and Sinatra. RIP

So basically the guy has a few million just like Crouch? Somehow i cannot help but think we have had the wool pulled over our eyes a little. Even Tony said the main guy had hundreds of millions of pounds, by the looks of it this guy has only a few million, deffinatly not enough to bring in Keegan and spearhead a spending spree. But we have to give the guy a chance and here is plans. We were never going to be having a spending power club but Pinnacle really have told a few porkies haven't they if he is the main man.

Hopefully as i said yesterday having another bidder becoming serious will make Pinnacle realise that they will lose out if they keep playing the waiting game. What is important now is the club has a owner who can pay the wages of the staff and can help with the building for the new season. We are not in a position to have a **** waiving contest like with what is going on now between the FL and Pinnacle. Sometimes the bigger war is more important then a tiny battle, the -10 issue is a tiny battle in a bigger war.