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Official: Sportsbet.io New Shirt Sponsor

Saint86

By Saint86,
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Lighthouse

Lighthouse

Posted
Posted
11 minutes ago, Saint_clark said:

Well this season's shirts with LD on them might be worth a bit in years to come. 

More likely it’ll be like that antique artwork that people think is priceless when they inherit it from their grandma, only to find out it’s just old tat nobody wants and there are warehouses full of it.

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suewhistle

suewhistle

Posted
Posted
44 minutes ago, SuperSAINT said:

This article was spot on back in the day...

https://sponsorship.sportbusiness.com/news/doubts-raised-over-southamptons-record-shirt-deal-with-ld-sports/

Wasn't it just. "Sports industry observers are now questioning Southampton’s rationale for selling a key sponsorship asset to an unknown brand."  Mind you, so were us fans. They really do take us for fools sometimes..

It's even made The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/aug/25/southampton-say-no-alternative-but-to-ditch-shirt-sponsor-ld-sports

 

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Turkish

Turkish

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, SuperSAINT said:

This article was spot on back in the day...

https://sponsorship.sportbusiness.com/news/doubts-raised-over-southamptons-record-shirt-deal-with-ld-sports/

Im not really sure why anyone doubted it. It's perfectly normal for a start up company without a proper website to spend £7m a year sponsoring a premier league team

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Chez

Chez

Posted
Posted
41 minutes ago, suewhistle said:

Wasn't it just. "Sports industry observers are now questioning Southampton’s rationale for selling a key sponsorship asset to an unknown brand."  Mind you, so were us fans.

 

If LD paid up front for the first year, there was no reason not to accept them as a sponsor, even though they were an unknown brand. Money us money I guess - and it was pretty obvious that it was just a way of Gao putting extra money into the club without breaking any rules. Obviously the second year cheque has failed to turn up, so the agreement will become null and void. Strange that the deadline for that second payment was not prior to the release of the new shirts. It's almost as if the club went ahead without the money in place and then a few weeks later when it still didn't turn up they had to admit that it might never turn up and looked for an alternative. 

They have done well to find a replacement at such short notice. I wonder how much less they have now received.

 

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Dusic

Dusic

Posted
Posted
8 minutes ago, Chez said:

If LD paid up front for the first year, there was no reason not to accept them as a sponsor, even though they were an unknown brand. Money us money I guess - and it was pretty obvious that it was just a way of Gao putting extra money into the club without breaking any rules. 

Genuine question - is it obvious that LD was a way of Gao putting extra money in?

He hasnt shown any inclination to do so during this ownership.

One thing is clear to me, LD was a big fuck up. It didnt look right from the start, and Semmens - otherwise logical and clear - gave very evasive answers when asked about them in the fans forums afterwards.

For Semmens to basically say to Adam Blackmore that they were at a loss of how to even contact LD, is quite amazing really, if not a suprise.

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Saint J 77

Saint J 77

Posted
Posted

Glad we have finally got the sponsor sorted out but it is a shame it is a betting company. I guess they are just a stop gap for this season.

So now we have managed to get rid of the dodgy Chinese sponsor,. How long do we reckon it will be before we get rid of the dodgy Chinese owner?

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S-Clarke

S-Clarke

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, LaptopSaint said:

Terrible decision, and still a sh!t logo. Won't be buying one of those. 

 

I guess you have to think - what is more terrible? No sponsor and no income, or a sponsor for 1 year to tide us over so we can sort out longer term next year?

There would have been very few viable sponsors out there willing to take us on at such short notice, just saying. The crux is that the terrible decision stems back to a year ago when the club thought LD Sports was a viable business back then, they never were. I'm really surprised that someone as switched on as Martin didn't flag that a year ago.

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SuperSAINT

SuperSAINT

Posted
Posted
57 minutes ago, Dusic said:

Genuine question - is it obvious that LD was a way of Gao putting extra money in?

He hasnt shown any inclination to do so during this ownership.

One thing is clear to me, LD was a big fuck up. It didnt look right from the start, and Semmens - otherwise logical and clear - gave very evasive answers when asked about them in the fans forums afterwards.

For Semmens to basically say to Adam Blackmore that they were at a loss of how to even contact LD, is quite amazing really, if not a suprise.

Was thinking that earlier too. 

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S-Clarke

S-Clarke

Posted
Posted (edited)
4 minutes ago, SuperSAINT said:

Was thinking that earlier too. 

It's a strange situation, but I find it hard to believe he wouldn't have been involved in this in some way. Surely people as switched on as Martin and co would have done the same due diligence as us last year? 

A few random fans on an internet forum found a company that didn't really exist, had no real purpose, lots of lies on their website and random made up people (and let's not forget the squirrel). If it flagged so many red flags for us, then how did that get through the club?

The person owning 80% stake calling the shots and shoehorning it through for his own benifit...? Just putting it out there.

Edited by S-Clarke
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stevy777_x

stevy777_x

Posted
Posted

if we had component local journalists, you would have thought that they would have investigated this sponsor from the start as it is sounded fishy at the time.

But all they like to do is report stories being fed to them by the club, and sit on their arses all day long eating pies.

That is not being a journalist, it is just being a reporter

Blackmore, Sheldon are of appalling quality and the new ones at the echo just report rumors.

They are just yes men who say amen to whatever says the club.

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LaptopSaint

LaptopSaint

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, S-Clarke said:

I guess you have to think - what is more terrible? No sponsor and no income, or a sponsor for 1 year to tide us over so we can sort out longer term next year?

There would have been very few viable sponsors out there willing to take us on at such short notice, just saying. The crux is that the terrible decision stems back to a year ago when the club thought LD Sports was a viable business back then, they never were. I'm really surprised that someone as switched on as Martin didn't flag that a year ago.

But how much income are we earning? LD Sports was reported at £7.5M pa so this lot probably got it for 5M knowing we had no other option. What's that equal? About a quarter of Guido Carrillo maybe? One of Jannik Vestergaard's legs?

Nothing wrong with putting the Saints Foundation on the shirts for a year - that would have generated massive goodwill and record sales. But hey ho - money.

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suewhistle

suewhistle

Posted
Posted

Market exposure of what though? There was no obvious product or service even, and everything that was available in the public domain was amateurish in the extreme, hence all the reservations on here.

The usual rule in these matters is follow the money. From a Harry Redknapp transfer deal, to the purchase of Carillo to this affair it would be interesting to see the money flows..

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suewhistle

suewhistle

Posted
Posted

Market exposure of what though? There was no obvious product or service even, and everything that was available in the public domain was amateurish in the extreme, hence all the reservations on here.

The usual rule in these matters is follow the money. From a Harry Redknapp transfer deal, to the purchase of Carillo to this affair it would be interesting to see the money flows..

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Chez

Chez

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, Dusic said:

Genuine question - is it obvious that LD was a way of Gao putting extra money in?

He hasnt shown any inclination to do so during this ownership.

 

sorry, I just assumed that a non existent company, with nothing to sell and little to gain spending £7.5m on a shirt sponsorship HAD to be the owner circumventing the FFP rules. Perhaps I am mistaken.

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djharvey

djharvey

Posted
Posted
50 minutes ago, Chez said:

sorry, I just assumed that a non existent company, with nothing to sell and little to gain spending £7.5m on a shirt sponsorship HAD to be the owner circumventing the FFP rules. Perhaps I am mistaken.

You're assuming a lot, including that the club has been paid!

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verlaine1979

verlaine1979

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, suewhistle said:

Market exposure of what though? There was no obvious product or service even, and everything that was available in the public domain was amateurish in the extreme, hence all the reservations on here.

The usual rule in these matters is follow the money. From a Harry Redknapp transfer deal, to the purchase of Carillo to this affair it would be interesting to see the money flows..

They wouldn't be the first tech/media startup to spunk their marketing budget and then run out of cash before launching a worthwhile product. Wasn't there some new online service in Europe that bought up a bunch of foreign league rights and then went bust after only a month or two?

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Professor

Professor

Posted
Posted

I'm with those who find the advertising of a betting company thoroughly distasteful.  Unfortunately, I can't protest by not buying a shirt because I already don't buy the annual rip-off of yet another replica shirt.  The changing of the shirt every year is making fans a laughing stock as they allow their pockets to be picked. 

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SaintBobby

SaintBobby

Posted
Posted (edited)

I’m not bothered about gambling companies sponsoring football clubs. I’d rather we tackled problem gambling directly rather than denormalising gambling overall. However, I’ve never heard of this outfit and it seems it’s as much to do with crypto-currency as with sports betting. 
 

The previous LD sports deal really looks extraordinarily dodgy. I hope we can sort of brush it away and move on, but I fear it could come back to bite us.

Edited by SaintBobby
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S-Clarke

S-Clarke

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, hypochondriac said:

I'm told now that we did receive the first 7.5 million but nothing after that so could have been worse and at least we've got a replacement. 

Reckon the club has legal grounds to sue them? As Martin said, they have almost zero communication from them, even after trying to make contact frequently. He did not sound best pleased.

But I'm not surprised really, I'm surprised they had any contact last year either, as they're a fake company.

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Harry_SFC

Harry_SFC

Posted
Posted
29 minutes ago, sir_fred said:

Weird times... Well run on the pitch and totally chaos off pitch. I am amazed the Ralph stays. He probably gets a lot of power to make this his team...

This is the thing that pleases me about us right now. Semmens clearly trusts the manager and Ralph gets the final say on transfers. This whole LD saga is a farce though and doesn't paint the club in the best light. Hopefully the club can be sold sooner rather than later. 

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Badger

Badger

Posted
Posted
49 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

Reckon the club has legal grounds to sue them? As Martin said, they have almost zero communication from them, even after trying to make contact frequently. He did not sound best pleased.

But I'm not surprised really, I'm surprised they had any contact last year either, as they're a fake company.

You've probably answered your own question.

Even if successful they probably don't have a pot to piss in and would end up taking the squirrel's last nut as their last remaining asset.

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once_bitterne

once_bitterne

Posted
Posted

LD has nothing to do with Chairman Gao.  For a start he doesn't have any money of his own, he had to take personal loans to buy the club in the first place and he could always put in the amounts LD was meant to be and still be well within FFP rules.

The only plausible explanation for the whole sorry saga is that this was a form of Chinese government funding given as a type of oversees investment grant.  It was given last year, but due to the worsening relations between their government and ours was stopped for this year.  As LD Sports is not an actual company there was no contract hence why the club has nothing it can do in legal terms.

What a mess.  No doubt this has cost the club millions.

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hypochondriac

hypochondriac

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, S-Clarke said:

Reckon the club has legal grounds to sue them? As Martin said, they have almost zero communication from them, even after trying to make contact frequently. He did not sound best pleased.

But I'm not surprised really, I'm surprised they had any contact last year either, as they're a fake company.

Who would you sue though? Would be pretty difficult, do they even have a physical address? 

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VectisSaint

VectisSaint

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, SaintBobby said:

However, I’ve never heard of this outfit and it seems it’s as much to do with crypto-currency as with sports betting. 
 

 

They've been front of shirt sponsors for Watford for a year and are still sponsoring them for the coming two seasons. I guess that shows how much sponsorship works if people haven't even heard of them. The crypto currency thing means they aren't even a proper real gambling company, though they may be part owned by BetFred, depends if the Aussie company with the same name is part of the same organisation.

https://news.bitcoin.com/pr-sportsbet-io-watford-fc-drive-bitcoin-awareness/

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saint1977

saint1977

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, once_bitterne said:

LD has nothing to do with Chairman Gao.  For a start he doesn't have any money of his own, he had to take personal loans to buy the club in the first place and he could always put in the amounts LD was meant to be and still be well within FFP rules.

The only plausible explanation for the whole sorry saga is that this was a form of Chinese government funding given as a type of oversees investment grant.  It was given last year, but due to the worsening relations between their government and ours was stopped for this year.  As LD Sports is not an actual company there was no contract hence why the club has nothing it can do in legal terms.

What a mess.  No doubt this has cost the club millions.

My sense on whole LD saga as well. Although posters on here say we got the first £7.5m, and say the new deal is £5m for year, that’s £2.5m down with 12 months to allow RH to carry on improving the first team and Semmens/Crocker the rest ready for a longer term deal 2021 onwards. It’s a PL place. Not great but compared to the sheer destruction Les Reed wrought - Fraser second very dubious contract extension, Carrillo, Pellegrino and staff, Hughes and staff, Hoedt - its a drop in the ocean by comparison. Reputationally worse of course and the reason most of us want the club sold ASAP is because we don’t want the club caught in the crosshairs of Boris/Trump vs China. 

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S-Clarke

S-Clarke

Posted
Posted (edited)
1 minute ago, hypochondriac said:

The other thing is we have thousands of shirts with the old sponsor that are now worthless. 

Exactly that, there is also that massive outlay too. That won't be free.

LD Sports are still showing our content all over their page - https://www.ldsports.uk/

A very strange and peculiar situation all round. I wonder if the club are trying to get that removed, but you'd think any viable company would have done it themselves. Such a shambles, really want to see how on earth this got through the door last year.  I'd love to see who pushed it. It needs some sort of investigation tbh, but I'm a bit scared about what murky stuff it would show re: our ownership and if that would end up with us getting peanlised.

Edited by S-Clarke
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saint1977

saint1977

Posted
Posted
16 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

The other thing is we have thousands of shirts with the old sponsor that are now worthless. 

This is true. I don’t know the unit of production of football shirts but estimating £7 x 40k run at a time? Plus the distribution and supply chain costs. They could peel the labels off and seal the new logos on I guess for a proportion but that’s probably costing too much plus green objectives. 
 

SClarke - I agree that the governance here was as bad as the PL in allowing Gao to take over in the first place. They won’t want to delve deeper into their laxity and will be relieved when SFC is finally sold. It’s why good professional people like Semmens exist, let them get on with their jobs. For the most part, Gao does seem to have done but not sure what made LD an exception, or rather who.

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bender

bender

Posted
Posted (edited)

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/18677125.saints-ceo-martin-semmens-insists-club-will-find-solution-fans-bought-shirts-ld-sports-logo/

"We will find a solution to it, whether it’s replacing it or putting a new logo over the top, but we need a few more days to work that one through."

New logo over the top ??? Are you kidding me ?  

Anyone here remember 1989 when the fans were sold shirts that said 'Draper Tools' but the shirt worn by the players for the first couple of games said 'Draper.'   They basically told fans to bring their shirts back to the shop where they ironed on a massive black Draper wording sign over the top of the Draper Tools.   After a couple of games they had to change the actual shirt worn by the players to a massive black Draper sign so they were the same.  

spacer.pngspacer.png

 

 

 

 

Edited by bender
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Delmary

Delmary

Posted
Posted

Creditor Applies For Bankruptcy Liquidation Of Lander Sports Dev's Controlling Shareholder

Sept 2 (Reuters) - Lander Sports Development Co Ltd <000558.SZ>::SAYS CREDITOR OF ITS CONTROLLING SHAREHOLDER HAS FILED APPLICATION FOR CO'S CONTROLLING SHAREHOLDER TO GO BANKRUPTCY LIQUIDATION.

a day ago
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Saint Garrett

Saint Garrett

Posted
Posted
19 minutes ago, Delmary said:

Creditor Applies For Bankruptcy Liquidation Of Lander Sports Dev's Controlling Shareholder

Sept 2 (Reuters) - Lander Sports Development Co Ltd <000558.SZ>::SAYS CREDITOR OF ITS CONTROLLING SHAREHOLDER HAS FILED APPLICATION FOR CO'S CONTROLLING SHAREHOLDER TO GO BANKRUPTCY LIQUIDATION.

a day ago

Inevitable, given it means they don't have to pay their debts.

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Dusic

Dusic

Posted
Posted

All considered, its quite amazing that we received £7.5m from them last year (which has been confirmed).

Surely someone will carry the can for this at Saints? Given we are a small club trying to compete in a league of high finance, these kind of mistakes are really costly.

Hopefully going forwards we can tie up with a company for a longer term period, similar to what Brighton have with Amex, where there is actually a relationship between the club, organisation and city that is built on solid, long term foundations.

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trousers

trousers

Posted
Posted (edited)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-8695941/Southampton-shirty-former-sponsor-club-taking-legal-action-against-LD-Sports.html

"Southampton get shirty with former sponsor as club take legal action against LD Sports after failing to receive assurances company could fulfil £7.5m deal"

Edited by trousers
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alehouseboys

alehouseboys

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, trousers said:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-8695941/Southampton-shirty-former-sponsor-club-taking-legal-action-against-LD-Sports.html

"Southampton get shirty with former sponsor as club take legal action against LD Sports after failing to receive assurances company could fulfil £7.5m deal"

That reads as if it was a 3 year deal worth £7.5m, not £7.5m per year over the period of which we've already, reportedly, received the first year in full.

And amusing to see a 'tinpot' little skate joining in with the big boys in the comments.

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wild-saint

wild-saint

Posted
Posted
12 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Apparently we've known about this situation for weeks and were debating about how to release the info. They've tried to do something with the shirts and it's looked rubbish so it looks like they may have thousands of junk saints shirts that can't be salvaged. 

As they cost about a quid to make I’m sure they aren’t that bothered.

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