Clifford Nelson

The FL said that SLH and SFC were "intrinsically linked", and I don't think we can really refute that, can we? That doesn't mean that they are the same "legal" entity. SFC isn't in Administration and can therefor not be subject to a CVA. SLH can, and must be if it is being bought. Not even the FL could possibly want to see a CVA for a company which hasn't been legally in Administration. They can't ask to see flying pigs or elves either.

I've now read the statement a couple of times and it is clear to me that there is an agreement in principle with somebody. If he had been appointed until Friday it wouldn't have been worded the way it has been. It convinced me that the actual purchase of the club has now all but been completed. Curious to know by whom.

All the talk about wild deduction of points has got nothing to do with anything apart from our panic stricken minds. Pinnacle didn't complete because they didn't have the money. Whether the whole thing was a hoax or just very badly handled we will probably never find out. (Michael Fialka is still claiming he has got money - see the Echo, so no chance of getting at the truth from him or his oppo Lynam.) The issues regarding additional points deductions only have to do with a CVA, a Creditors Voluntary Agreement with the new owners that they accept whatever deal has been put to them. Since the football club isn't in administration a CVA can never arise. If I understand the FL they have never said that that is the case, but that the relationship between the plc and the football club was such so that it made no material difference. Southampton Leisure Holdings were bust, and since they had the money, the club couldn't carry on. I think it would be very difficult to argue with that.

The Echo reports what people are telling them. In the case of Paul Allen it was the belief of the directors, some of which kept believing for many months. I find the Echo being quite accurate in their reporting provided I'm alert to the sources they refer to. I certainly have no sense of things being dreamt up in the news room.

Thanks Shurlock, that seems to be possibly the same arrangements as when Salz was meeting Crouch, i.e. that he was helping out with contacts, not with personal involvement in a bid.

Could somebody, please, let me know what the foundation is for Salz's name to keep cropping up. He seems very absent from where I am standing.

Not entirely germane, I give you that, but the "customers" here did something else. They didn't buy another brand (that is the peculiarity of team sports) they just stopped buying. If the CEO of Nike was so arrogant towards his customers they will probably buy another brand, so that Nike goes bust. In a way that is what has happened here. In my experience arrogance is nothing specific to RL, senior management everywhere in the UK is steeped in a culture where it plays a major part. Mostly, although not always, they keep their arrogance private. RL couldn't stop himself from going public with it at every turn.

I'm sure you are right, Pap, but the Ruper Lowe saga is something else. Fans, couches and other football people (Lawrie Mac for one) were continously insulted with a breathtaking arrogance. His behaviour would have turned away the customers of any company.

Aviva (Norwich Union) issued the mortgage for St Mary's. That means that they own the place. If there is no football club playing there it can't pay for itself. Bon Jovi can't be there every two weeks, and who is to pay the rent in between concerts? So there is at least one creditor, for our biggest debt, who has got a major incentive for Saints survival. If football was a different world I could see them flogging it to those blue buggers down the road who need a stadium, but since this is the real world it will not happen.

The local media is keeping quite well on top of this, regardless of the comments on the forum. I don't know what the vitriol regarding the Echo is all about. What becomes clear though is when my life circulates entirely around the club at the moment there are plenty of people even in Southampton itself who have no interest at all. They never have had and won't start now. When it comes to national media it's a different story. You will now find that nothing outside the Premiership isn't really covered anymore in a serious way. My broadsheet newspaper leaves it to a fan from each side to write a few lines. News on teletext ceases entirely below the Championship, so if we ever survive into League One we will have to find new ways in seeking simple information.

Before I have a go at TL I ask myself how many people was taken in by whoever was behind this bid. MLT obviously was, Leon Crouch could possibly have been to the tune of a cool £1/2M, MF was convinced the money was there. When Fialka was coming out of the woodwork it was clear that everything wasn't the way it should be, but surely he couldn't be behind it all even though he was supposed to be "a good talker". Didn't any of the people involved think of Googling him? The Farmer has been absent from the forum since he acted as a conduit for TL a few days ago. I'd welcome him to come back on with some info from TL, for as long as we can get some parts of the truth. That everything was somebody else's fault is a bit like the playground, isn't it? Since TL is now out of work again, I'm sure he can post an account of this fiasco. I especially would like to know how it was humanly possible to think that we all could be taken in by the letting agent from Barnet. Whose idea could it possibly be? If we knew we might be able to start unravel it all.

Why does Salz's name keep being mentioned? He could have bought the club at any time but doesn't seem to have been near this auction.

Why all the references to Salz? Hasn't he been prominent only by his total absence? If he had wanted to by the club he would have done so ages ago.

You're right. When Fialka was wheeled out my brain kept waiving a large red flag which my heart tried its best, but not very successfully to ignore. There was never any money there and a lot of people have been taken to the cleaners. Poor Leon Crouch if as the rumours have it he put up the £500K.

Do you remember when we thought that the old lot were soooo rubbish because they couldn't get investment in. We so love the old club so that we think it is valuable, but the truth start to sink in now. Next piece of reality is looking at that club down the road, £60M down the Swanee, and some, and middling in the Premiership. I have started to think that it isn't possible anymore to survive there. Harry left when the writing was on the wall. Maybe it would be more fun to see Saints win a few games rather than fighting relegation and bankruptcy every year. The Premiership is unsustainable, and the crash is coming soon, so why do we really want to be part of it? The next terrible thought is, maybe it doesn't matter what I think because on Friday we will be the next Accrington Stanley. It is going to happen to somebody soon, so why not us? But who will play at St Mary's?

Probably more likely a way of making sure that the staff is getting paid and that there is some money in the pot towards liquidating the company if necessary come Friday. At the moment no money is coming into the football club, which is still running up expenses. Nothing shady or peculiar in all this, but I hope that the buyers didn't bank on the players now being sold.

Beer Engine, It's hard to see who would provide the capital in the current market, like others have pointed out. A leveraged buy-out is based on future profits, which need to be substantial. When you think Man U or Liverpool, you might possibly be blinded to believe in future profits, but Saints?! The Fialka fiasco needs to be explained whatever happens, since he is supposedly the prospective owner. The facts are pointing to him not having any money, but we are supposed to believe the opposite because Fry, TL and himself says so? Please give us some proper explanations, because if he was sent out as a front for others, hadn't they done their homework? That is worrying.

Nick, There have indeed been a bunch of jokers involved in the disasters, several of which like Wiseman and others, mainly for suffering from the great British desease of not ever rocking the boat until there is a new leader to suck up to. But the breathtaking arrogance of a recent chairman could only have been ignored if the results had spoken loudly, like us being up there with Man U and Chelsea. Weren't we the "lunatic fringe" because we disagreed with him? Can we remember the tracksuit with the initials on it? The players arriving here which none of the coaches had asked for and who never played? That the catering at St Mary's was the best in the Premiership or that his radio station was the fastest growing in Hampshire? You know that I could go on. If we're eventually saved I will forgive most of them their pathetic shortcomings, but the arrogance, never! Can you imagine any leader of a public company treating his customers like that?

I start to feel like a rather sad person logging on in the ridicolous hope that I will find some news here which will make me believe again. So I went back to page 57 to see what had happened and found a string ot posts declaring with euphoria that the deal was done, humbe pie had to be eaten, and whatnot. So I'm desperately looking for the foundation for this and it seems to be MLT finally realising that FL won't budge on the 10 points! I seem to think that throughtout the week I have said that that the FL won't budge. MLT has now seen the light? Maybe we're all too desperate for our own good. The Fialka business is still strange. The family is wealthy, say Fry, when dad drives a taxi and mum sells underwear from a pink shop in ****fosters, and when the Echo would like to have a little bit of substantiation for the wealth MF got miffed that he wasn't believed and threatened to scupper the deal! Please!!!!!! Even if the bloke is fronting the deal for his fantastically wealthy friends (hundreds of millions said TL) how come these immensely rich people chose MF as their frontman? They can Google as well, can't they? There is a myth spreading that "real" rich businessment are amazingly secretive and manage to keep their names out of every deal they are making. In the maffia, maybe, but not in the real world. And masquerading as a letting agent living at home to cover up the immense wealth? With due respect, that is poppy****. Rich people are known, even if they don't give interviews. I'd love to believe, I really, really do, but why does the scenario seem so unbelievable?

I don't think we ought to throw vitriole at anyone, but feelings are running awfully high, and there are some real peculiarities out there which a good few of us are trying to understand. It's difficult to sit and do and say nothing. Nickh is one sensible voice amongst many, and I agree with him here.

Getting out of the deal by blaming somebody else such as the FL, the Echo, or maybe even us, since we've been dissing Fialka.

Porbably not correct since he hasn't got anything real to sell. The exclusivity period expired a week ago, anybody could go straight to Mark Fry and give him an offer.

You're forgetting that there was a 5 year plan to return to the Premiership, with very conserable investments every step of the way. Re-scheduling that plan ought to have been able to deal with either the 10 points or at worst an additional year in League One. Since you keep on bumping into TL could you ask him why on earth he wheeled out Fialka? Surely he must have known that he wouldn't pass muster? Where is the man with hundreds of millions?

I'm trying to get my head around what Pinnacle has been up to. Surely Mark Fry would have found out who were behind the bid and found it acceptable. What has been going on the last week has been a stalling operation from TL, since it must have been absolutely clear to him that FL was not going to change their mind. Did he lose the money man? And has spent this week unsuccessfully seeking a replacement? Because nobody but the desperate would have put up Michael Fialka as the man behind the bid. It only took a few second to Google him and find him wanting. The deal is now dead, but what on earth has been going on?

Why not let the football club go into administration now. Then the FL paperwork can be signed off and the purchase go ahead, and then the FL can try to explain how the club could have gone into administration twice without having been rescued inbetween. Is there something in this?