SaintBobby

Agree with your first point, although I guess this means teh pressure on the Football League will not be v supportive of us....

Lengthy report from Gary Cotterill on SSN. Precis follows: The meeting at SMS has broken up - some members joined the meeting remotely (Lowe is in London). SLH has gone into administration (although he also wrongly used the word "liquidation" a few times). Press conference with the administrators expected tomorrow afternoon. Rupert Lowe appears to have "cleverly dodged" the 10 point penalty (also went on to describe Lowe as a very clever and astute businessman who has seen this loophole and gone for it!!!). League yet to 100% confirm that the 10 point penalty will not apply. Likely to provoke fury from other clubs - and from Ken Bates. Noted the Derby County precedent.

I'm only hypothesising - and it would, of course, require us to go into administration....

Semi-seriously...(although with the emphasis on semi)...does anyone know if Eastleigh's Silverlake stadium can legally host League One games? Or whether it could be rendered fit for such a purpose? I see their record attendance is just over 3,000 (for a game vs Saints in July 2006) If capacity could be increased over the Summer - to say 9,000 with some temporary stands..... Like I say, emphasis on "semi" rather than "serious"...

I'm not sure Aviva's negotiating hand is very strong though. They might just have to accept we can't repay £23m. And the problem for them is that the asset they are inheriting is worth nowhere near £23m. Point taken that it may be worth more than £1m for potential property development - but certainly nowhere near £23m. It still seems to me that Aviva would probably have to sell it on to "AFC Saints" for massively less than £23m.

Slight impression I'm getting (from media reports) is that we may have a bit longer than I first feared to sort this out. SLH statement says we couldn't continue over a twelve month period. The bloke on SSN thought we needed to find a buyer in the Summer.

Posted (a version of) this elsewhere - would welcome thoughts: SLH defaults on the mortgage on SMS (this seems to be the overwhelming part of our debt) and hands over the keys to Norwich Union (unclear on timing - probably when we have our last three games out of the way). The debt is written off, SLH wound up and Norwich Union have a pretty useless asset on their hands - the only possible buyer being a sports club in Southampton with many thousands of supporters. A "reborn" Southampton Football Club then buys back the stadium for a song. The bulk of the existing SLH debt ends up being shouldered by NU's shareholders. Saints are reborn (probably in League One) with v limited debt round our necks.

SKY SPORTS NEWS reporting the story now. Seem to think SLH £27m in debt. But also said that St. Mary's was built in 2005, the year we were relegated.

I think the rules say something about honouring all football debts. Printers, caterers, builders and decorators might not get their money, but Notts County surely will....no?

I don't like the plc structure, but would be an irony if it does save us from a 10 point penalty. The stadium thing bewilders me. I just can't get my head around the economics of it. If I default on my mortgage, the C&G take possession and there are literally thousands of potential buyers for my flat. It's probably a bit of a pain for C&G, but the safety/security they have is that they can get a decent, market-rate-ish price for the property. I can't see how this is the case for Norwich Union and SMS. If they take possession, who the heck are they going to sell it to. The place is basically worthless other than to a sports team based in Southampton with thousands and thousands of supporters. So can't a "reborn" Southampton FC rebuy SMS for some nominal fee? Say £1m? And Norwich Union end up just having to write off the debt? I can imagine a Mexican stand-off developing, but ultimately the stadium is pretty damned worthless to NU in a way that my flat isn't to Cheltenham & Gloucester.

Is that true? The ST cash would have just disappeared down the toilet?

I'm no Luvvie, but there would be a delicious irony if this is true. And no last laugh for Rupes as his shares will be worth sod all.

Thinking aloud here - but wonder if this is part of the loophole. Desperately clutching at straws...but.... Could SLH tell Norwich Union "Sorry, we can't keep up our mortgage payments, here are the keys for the ground. It's all yours." NU then have a white elephant on their hands. They rent the stadium back to the club for the remaining 3 games. £23m of debt cleared....

On the face of it, this does look like a pretty narrow and dubious loophole, but I don't speak as a business analyst or sports lawyer. It just "feels" like a desperate last throw of the dice. That said, Lowe et al may have secured sound legal advice or even discussed the matter with the Football League. I wouldn't bet my life on that, but i wouldn't rule it out either. I think our case can be distinguished from Leeds United's. We seem to be trying to avoid the penalty altogether, whereas Leeds deliberately took the penalty only when they were certain to be relegated. To that extent, they were only really punished once.

I have. And have suggested a cost-cutting measure in these troubled times would be to close the official website.

It is pitiful. If you can't even cover major news about yourself, your website is pretty redundant. Even just something saying "Trading in SLH shares has been suspended. A statement will be issued at 11am". FFS.

Tragic situation. My final hope is that this wheeze of putting SLH into admin but not the club is a legitimate loophole....

We should win really. And if it's a draw with ten minutes to go, we should play as if we're 1-0 down. I'd say 2-1 Saints. The bookies odds are about the same as for the Derby game. Saints 11/8, QPR 11/5, Draw 12/5.

I think we should judge Wotte on performances and results rather than on the final league table (I accept that the table will reflect performances/results to some extent, but only to some extent). On the nine games played so far, Wotte has been good enough to stay. If we maintain this level of (fluctuating) form in our remaining nine games, we should keep him.

It would be a decent achievement for Wotte to get us out of this mire. I liked Pearson a lot, but do soemtimes think his achievements are a little over-stated simply because of the drama of the last day escape. Did we really only win 3 games with him as manager? It just sometimes seems to feel a lot more than that. I also think we need a bit of a reality check in terms of how acceptable/disappointing our league position is. Last season, we finished 20th, two points clear of relegation. Since then, we have dramatically pared back the squad and radically diminished the wage bill. All things being equal, we should expect to fare worse than last year. If we do manage to escape relegation, the 2008/9 season should be seen as a footballing and financial triumph compared to 2007/8. If we are relegated, this would understandably equate to failure. But we still would have done better than last year on any sort of "points per pound" basis. I'd retain Wotte if he continues his current average of 1.33 points a game, even if we end up in League One.

I'm sure administration will be fended off if there is any mathematical chance of survival. As this is likely to be the case even with 2 or 3 games to go, I don't see us going into admin in the next couple of weeks. I have still not seen anything to suggest that administration is a certainty anyway. Outgoings can be cut still further by shipping out the last few remaining high wage earners and we could probably still raise a few million through player sales (Surman, Lallana and Schneiderlin must be worth £3m between them, even at desperate "everything must go" prices). Presumably, we could sell off Staplewood if we really had to, as well. A big difference with Darlington is that they have been getting crowds of about 3,000. Even if relegated, I'd imagine we'd get 10,000 or so per match. I'd also say that the delay in announcing season ticket prices for next season is a sign that things are not totally irreperable financially. A panicky "renew now at 50% off" deal would have brought in perhaps as much as a million quid. If we were fighting tooth and nail to fend off creditors, it's unlikely that the club is foregoing any season ticket income until our league status is clarified. No one has taken me up on any of my suggested wagers so far, so let's see if I have more joy this time. I'm willing to bet up to £1,000 at evens that we do not go into administration this month. Any takers? If so, PM me.

Definitely up for this. Sounds fantastic. Guess need some rules/procedures about who plays where etc? Im not interested in being the keeper.

Actually, have just done it myself - and I'm a pessimist - I came up with us finishing 15th on 55 points with Blackpool (45pts), Barnsley (43) and Charlton (36) going down. How do you post ur predictor table here by the way? A simpel cut and paste doesn't seem to work...

Pancake, If you do honestly believe your predictions, I have a great money-making scheme for you. Saints are quoted at about 11/10 to be relegated, so you should be able to get not far off evens that we stay up, maybe 6/4 on. If you think we'll get 58 points, this is a fantastic bet.

The bookies put us at about 11/10 to go down - so if anyone really is convinced that we're doomed, you can more than double your money by getting it down now.