hutch

To be quite honest, after watching Valencia in the CL final, I think we're more likely to get an "offer we can't refuse" from Manure.

Only if you're at sea level and it's 15°C outside. By the time you got up 24 flights of stairs, it would weigh less than that. Although that's not strictly true, of course. You would still have 1,000kg of water, but it's volume would by then be more than 1,000 litres.

Ah, so there is a point to this thread then. Had me wondering for a while.

You'd deffo need one on the bench in case one of the others got injured. And if you subscribe to a popular view on here, you'd also need a couple in the squad as back up for the back up. 5 is probably not enough.

More importantly, Marco, why were the rules suddenly changed to award the 2022 competition to Qatar 4 years early while the current ageing incumbents are still at the trough?

About time too. It's been more than 6 months since they were last taken over.

The bookies have clearly factored-in anticipated squad changes. If they hadn't, 8-man Pompey would obviously be bottom.

Hardly surprising that there's a lot of frantic "pass the parcel" going on on payday at the end of a month with no income, when the out-of-contract squad still have to be paid. They can't afford a hiccup in paying wages when the FL is watching their "trading within our means" story so closely. So somebody has to stump up another £2m. The only facts in the News story are that nobody from the club was available for comment yesterday, and that Dubov won't comment until after the wages have been paid. I guess the purchase price has just gone up by another £2m.

Not so. Only FIFA-licensed vendors were allowed to sell within a 5km radius of a venue on the day of the game. It was rigorously enforced. Also wholescale confiscation of goods deemed to contravene copyright, such as unlicensed use of such terms as "2010" or "World Cup". The heavy-handed "policing" of the event in SA by FIFA's stormtroopers under the pretext of protecting the sponsors pretty much killed the 2010 WC as a social event in SA last year.

Mugabe does regularly. So did Mubarak for 30 years.

I'm not sure that there is an ultimate get out clause to avoid any payment at all. There was one for the original club (Company), which has now been liquidated, to avoid paying the first instalment of £3m, which they duly did. No surprise there. But that gets added to the amount that the "new" club, the one that Chainrai "acquired" from the Administrator, has to pay to the creditors. The CVA says that the new club has an obligation to make a contribution to the liquidation which is big enough to allow all the creditors to receive 20p in the £ (after deduction of costs) within 4 years and 3 months from the date of acquisition of the "new" club by Chainrai. So whoever owns the club at that time (sometime in late 2014 or early 2015 IIRC) will have to stump up about £16.5m at that time. You have to add that amount to whatever any new buyer will pay Chainrai for the club. Chainrai never intended to be around that long, so he won't pay a penny.

He's not the only one

An interesting read on the subject.

... made up of South Africans & Irishmen. With the odd Englishman thrown in.

He turned us from: Saints 2-0 down - game over; Saints 2-0 up - squeaky bum time to: Saints 2-0 up - game over; Saints 2-0 down - game on And his most important signings have been Team Spirit and Fortress St. Marys Long may it continue

The present football business will change over the next 5 years, from the madhouse it is now. It is very likely that there will be a change to the football creditors rule soon, possibly later this year. That, together with the UEFA spending constraints and maximum squad sizes will have an impact across all the leagues. The Saints model, building substantially from within, with solid infrastructure, might just be a better way than the Man City/Chelsea/Pompey model. Buying instant success is going to be a lot more difficult. How many players would Pompey have been able to buy 3 years ago for megabucks on the never never without a payment guarantee from the league? There are still a lot of clubs in the PL and nPC with dodgy finances. Regular Champions League is a pipe dream, but stability in the Premier and odd appearances in Europa League isn't.

In the market we're still in, the wages are more important than the price. You ought to get the transfer fee back when the player moves on, if you buy wisely, but 10K a week for a player on a 3 year contract is 1.5M that you don't get back. No need to bloat the squad.

Up at 4am in Hotel in Dar es Salaam for 7 O'Clock flight to Jo'burg. Home in Pretoria at around 11. Say Hi to Mrs.H and the kids, and dump the dirty laundry, and re-pack the suitcase. Try to get a bit of time on SWF/SaintsPlayer in the afternoon, then leave again about 6pm to the airport to catch the overnight flight to Cairo en-route to Kuwait for a meeting on Monday. Not really what the OP had in mind, I'm sure, but Saints supporters don't all fit the same mould.

"What Alpine doosen't want to be doing now, Eric, is watch Saints letting in goals"

We didn't get any of the L1 games here, and don't get many of the nPc games either. We had Saints live twice in the past 2 seasons - the Skates & Manure cup games. But when we're back in the PL, we do get almost all of the games live. We get either 7 or 8 of the 10 games live each weekend, and the others we get "in full" but delayed within 24 hours. So just 1 more year to wait.

Made some brave decisions in resting some of our key players for important games when they weren't 100% fit, with an eye on the long term plan

They nicked our play-off spot last year, but they will come up with us this year.

I'm off for a smoke

We could lose today and on Saturday, and still go up in second, never mind the play-offs. There's still a whole bunch of cherries left to bite on. No need for nerves.

Friday again. Big day today, they're being taken over this week ................... aren't they? Last day for this thread then!