When do we stop being a "selling club"?

[Redslo]

Short answer, when we build and more importantly fill a 65,000 capacity stadium or persuade Bill Gates living in Woolston is the ideal place to raise a family.

 

Bill Gates youngest child is 15. I suspect we should target him to move to Woolston (a place I have not actually heard of--and Bill Gates probably hasn't either) in 3 or 4 years as an empty nester.

 

Its not who we sell that is weakening us but who we buy. We are slow, ponderous and indecisive when buying players in the summer transfer market. We often get out muscled by even modest opposition and leave everything to the last minute.

 

None of that is true. We do our transfers early, late, and in the middle of the transfer windows just like almost everyone else.

 

There are three clubs in the world who are not "selling clubs". Bayern, Barca, Real.

Everyone else can be poached - watch Hazard go to Real this summer.

 

I don't know. Didn't we buy someone off Bayern recently?

 

Is that allowed under FFP?

 

Not if you want to play in Europe. You can sort of do it in the Premier League still.

 

Of course, you've just got to be a bit devious about it. Last time I looked Emirates Airways put more into Citeh than they actually make in a year. You buy a club, you get your best mate or cousin to the 15th degree to give you a whacking great sponsorship deal and you sort it out with him in some Caiman Islands account afterwards; It really isn't that complex. Take PSG, owned by the Qatari Royal Family and sponsored by Qatari Airways or The Tourist Board or whatever.

If she really wanted to do it in style Ms Liebherr could persuade her uncles and aunts to sponsor the club and give us 20 times whatever Virgin do. It's a separate entity and would pass the FFP tests with flying colours.

 

If you recall, Man City and PSG were sanctioned for doing that sort of thing and only just recently go the limits on their spending removed.

 

http://www.espnfc.us/blog/uefa/258/post/3108919/uefa-no-financial-fair-play-sanctions-for-manchester-city-or-paris-saint-germain

[John Boy Saint]

Like was said at the time in a serious newspaper journal when FFP was switched on, instead of levelling the playing field as it was meant to, FFP kicks the ladder away, preventing anyone planning bridging the gap to mix it with the traditional top 5/6 clubs more or less pushing water up hill.

Man City got pinged for breaking the limits a few seasons ago, then they had that Mickey mouse exhibition game in Qatar flying back on the morning of the 3rd round of the FA Cup which they lost to Boro. Alledgedly that exhibition game was put on by a distant cousin of the owner for an extortionate amount, that along with the naming rights of the City of Manchester stadium swelled the INCOME of Man City to the point where they were very unlikely to break the % v income rules.

 

The days of Jack Walker buying the prem with his wealth are long gone, Bill Gates with all his billions could buy Saints but we would still only be able to pay our players what we are doing now, because unless he chicanes money onto the balance sheet by calling us the Google St Mary's stadium for a bonkers amount, why not Microsoft name on the stadium - because that's too transparent as to its source - pays matey at Googles uncles cousins sister who then invests it into Google to "buy" the naming right - bingo job done.

Man U have enough traction built up that their overall income was £1b+ that gives them the strength to pay Falcao £340k a week to warm the bench when he was with them.

VVD earning £200k per week at Liverpool there is nothing we can do to fight that, if we matched those wages for him we would probably incur an absolutely horrendous fine just to stop any other "little club" thinking they can stick two fingers up at the system.

Just do a Leicester last season except for a few seasons on the trot and we might evntually stop the summer sales.

[RonManager]

Like was said at the time in a serious newspaper journal when FFP was switched on, instead of levelling the playing field as it was meant to, FFP kicks the ladder away, preventing anyone planning bridging the gap to mix it with the traditional top 5/6 clubs more or less pushing water up hill.

 

Water can be efficiently pushed uphill with the use of a Hydraulic Ram.

 

We need to source a Hydraulic Ram.

[Whitey Grandad]

Water can be efficiently pushed uphill with the use of a Hydraulic Ram.

 

We need to source a Hydraulic Ram.

 

Or an Archimedes screw.

[RonManager]

Or an Archimedes screw.

 

I'd start the ram and put the screw on the bench.

[Micky]

no other top club sells 3+ of its best player every single year

 

none, unless they are in the financial shyt

You're right, they don't, but we are not a top club.

 

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[Micky]

Tricky one, I suspect it will be when we get an owner who really has shedloads of money and doesn't think twice about pouring vast amounts of it into the club for no return .

Yep, pretty much this. Until a sugar daddy rolls up we're going to have to continue along the 'cut your cloth accordingly' route. It ain't rocket science, it's just what most clubs have to do.

 

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[John Boy Saint]

I'd start the ram and put the screw on the bench.

Where's all the water? 'Cos I'm pretty good at demonstrating Archimedes principle

[Batman]

Yep, pretty much this. Until a sugar daddy rolls up we're going to have to continue along the 'cut your cloth accordingly' route. It ain't rocket science, it's just what most clubs have to do.

 

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most clubs sell 3-5 of their very best players every single summer..?

 

interesting

[skintsaint]

most clubs sell 3-5 of their very best players every single summer..?

 

interesting

 

Not every team has 3-5 good players in demand every summer...

[Daft Kerplunk]

We will always be a selling club just like everyone apart from Real Madrid and Barcelona to a lesser extent as they have players that simply want to play there as they could earn more elsewhere.

 

The key thing for saints is the academy and is probably where we need to put more money to compete with the likes of Chelsea who apparently offer 'fake' jobs to parents to get kids to sign for them and Hoover up talent in the south. Because of clubs like Chelsea and Man City, it is a dirty game but the only way we can sustain a top 8 position long term is have the best possible academy players coming through on a very regular basis. Difficult but with the best young players and coaches, possible in the long term. This would make us more like Monaco and other teams who punch above their weight for periods.

[ally_uk]

Never in the grand scheme of things we are small time. Our fans have delusions of granduar. We play in a small stadium. Haven't won anything for years and globally are small. Of course our players will be poached. A better model would be to show a bit of bllocks and actually negotiate with clubs essentially create bidding wars. You want Van D? That's nice 80 million you can have him ring back when the moneys on the table if not jog on.... Not rocket science.

[Pass the Dutchie]

Why do certain good players like coming to Southampton? Because they know we have a reputation of being a good stepping stone to a bigger club. Stop that and we'd have more trouble getting certain players (for better or worse).

[Redslo]

Like was said at the time in a serious newspaper journal when FFP was switched on, instead of levelling the playing field as it was meant to, FFP kicks the ladder away, preventing anyone planning bridging the gap to mix it with the traditional top 5/6 clubs more or less pushing water up hill.

Man City got pinged for breaking the limits a few seasons ago, then they had that Mickey mouse exhibition game in Qatar flying back on the morning of the 3rd round of the FA Cup which they lost to Boro. Alledgedly that exhibition game was put on by a distant cousin of the owner for an extortionate amount, that along with the naming rights of the City of Manchester stadium swelled the INCOME of Man City to the point where they were very unlikely to break the % v income rules.

 

The days of Jack Walker buying the prem with his wealth are long gone, Bill Gates with all his billions could buy Saints but we would still only be able to pay our players what we are doing now, because unless he chicanes money onto the balance sheet by calling us the Google St Mary's stadium for a bonkers amount, why not Microsoft name on the stadium - because that's too transparent as to its source - pays matey at Googles uncles cousins sister who then invests it into Google to "buy" the naming right - bingo job done.

Man U have enough traction built up that their overall income was £1b+ that gives them the strength to pay Falcao £340k a week to warm the bench when he was with them.

VVD earning £200k per week at Liverpool there is nothing we can do to fight that, if we matched those wages for him we would probably incur an absolutely horrendous fine just to stop any other "little club" thinking they can stick two fingers up at the system.

Just do a Leicester last season except for a few seasons on the trot and we might evntually stop the summer sales.

 

FFP was not intended to level the playing field--except perhaps amoung the not rich clubs. The concern was the number of clubs losing money and going into receivership. Supposedly, that has stopped happening.

 

As for the effect on Southampton if we got a new rich owner, it is not hopeless, but almost. If we were content not to play in Europe, we could spend 35m a year more than we take in--actually a bit more since some expenses don't count against FFP--to compete in the premier league. 35m is about 675K a week so we could overpay a few players that way but it would require a rich owner willing to lose lots of money and never play in Europe.

[eddie]

Just a thought I had the other day.

 

Since our scouting seems to be top notch, and we are making profits on 'world class players' that two or three seasons ago cost us a quarter of the price, it seems reasonable to me that we accept inflated offers for top players with such huge profits. I hasten to add, not as a general rule, but for those players that would give us a significant profit.

 

Why?

 

Simply because for Southampton, a top player who newspapers rave about doesn't mean 50 million GBP+, breaking all the records etc.

 

In the case of VVD or Mane it meant around the 15 million mark.

 

In other words, some other clubs see journeymen as 20-30 million, young explosive talent as 40-50 and world class proven as 70+. Saints' numbers are just so much lower than that given our scouting is well done. Journeymen is under 10, young explosive talent 15-20 and world class as 20+, for example.

 

If we can recruit top talent, while being frugral with the cash, surely if Van Dijk goes for 50 million just think of what 'world class' talent we could get for 20 or 25.

 

I suppose there's a danger that it doesn't work, with Boufal or with Clasie, and that money is wasted. But then again we've never before had such a huge transfer fee touted as 60 million+. Would nearly pay off all our debts for goodness sake.