Southampton Rumours Archive January 19 2014

19 Jan 2014 22:41:54
Wang Jianling has denied interest of buying Saints for £175 million

He was interviewed by the Chinese media, where he denied reports. The only thing I will say however is that even if he were interested, he'd still deny reports. Let's just take a policy of wait and see for the time being. There's far too much smoke and barely any dagger.

He doesn't deny any personaly interest. Just interest from his group.

Likewise we are owned personally by KL.

His praise was very telling, and interesting that he had to come out and deny any interest in saints from half the world away.

A bid is incoming.

Dammit

19 Jan 2014 21:27:31
John Williams heavily linked with chief executive job today, plent of premier league experience, stepped aside at Blackburn when venky's took over, now works at man city, I don't think there's a better man at the moment!

The DE says that he is a long time Saints fan, so let's hope he is signed! At least he will be someone else who will be passionate about the club, like NC!

19 Jan 2014 17:23:27
I'm hearing and seeing a lot about this supposed takeover by Wang Jianlin's Dalian Wanda group lead by Cortese, but just how credible is this? I'm hearing equally that this is just being perpetuated by the media from a football forum as I am from supposedly reputable sources. So I'm wondering who's right. Does anyone one with any ACTUAL INFORMATION or checkable SOURCES know anything about this? (Eds got anything on this?)

{Ed001's Note - absolutely nothing sorry.}

The story first appeared on here Dec 23rd and was removed very quickly.
Ed?

{Ed001's Note - we don't know of anything in it. All we know for sure is that Wang Jianlin and Cortese are linked because they know each other personally. It seems to be just wishful thinking that Cortese left to make an attempt to buy the club allied with Jianlin. Hard to be sure, but the stories have no credible evidence, nor sources, in them to back up their claims. Every single one is pure conjecture, which makes it unlikely. Of course, there is always a chance they have guessed right.}

Its all speculation and wishful thinking, Wang himself has said there is nothing in it.

He telling denied any contact from Dalian Wanda, not a personal purchase which it would be in this case.

19 Jan 2014 13:58:02
All these takeover rumours, although they seem to good to be true at first kind makes sence and kind of makes it all fit together, Cortese resigns after he isn't granted more funds to either expand the stadium or build a new one by the owner, she doesn't supply anymore funds because she wants to sell as the value of the club has soared from when they took over and she thinks she could make a large profit. Pochetino said he would stay until the end of the season despite saying he would leave if Cortese did last May because apparantly "the situation has changed" from his position last summer. This must mean he's aware of the potential takeover from Wang Jianlin (which also makes sense as he recently bought out Sunseeker, one of our main sponsors). His company is said to be worth 19 billion, which would make us the richest club in the country. Cortese is in with him for the takeover which is why Pochettino knows and has stayed on as manager. Takover ameant be around the 175 million mark, giving Katarina a profit of 150 million, gives us Cortese back and the financial backing to really make his "project happen". Cortese would never just have left his project, as it clearly meant a lot to him and especially when we are in european contention this season (even if it is a long shot), Cortese really does want to make us into the English Barcelona, so I really hope this happens as it does fit together and seem to make sense. COYR! Oh and Ed is this just paper talk or have I actually got a point here aha?

We spent 70+mil on players over 5 yrs and bought club for 14mil so not quite 150 mil profit.

This has been a rumour for a few months now
and personally I agree that courtese
doesnt like to walk away from anything that what he would class as unfinished business

Surely part of the 70m paid in transfers comes from sky money etc.

We may have spent £70 + million on players but we have sold many players & still have the bought players as assets. i'm not certain but I don't believe our net spend is £70 mil

It's almost as if everyone forgets that we've had 120 million just from tv revenue in the premier league, 15 mill for the ox, other revenue would have exponentially increased from promotion.

Part of that 70 million was sky money and Markus left a trust to the club when he died that was worth around 30m at the time

I've just seen his yacht in Southampton harbour, parked next to Paul Allen's!

I would love us to have the money and it would be a fairy tale endig to ourstruggle fro administration in lague one but one problem for me is all th plasticfans that will follow because I like taking the piss out of the chelsas, man utds and singin you only lie round the corner"and I don't want teams inging"we support ou local team" to us becuse we've been there and I don't want the plasti pri*s that ce with becoming a "big" clb but I guess its inevitable butit may just be me having a problem with it

Yes and Martin O'Neil has just put down a deposit on house in Winchester - FACT!

Oh the good old days - I do miss the rumours everyone believed the instant the where spouted.

In the meantime I think this Chinese billionaire gives all his money to Southampton FC has already seemed to have run his course, most journalists on further investigation have found that it has no substance.

Next!

PS: If it is true and comes to pass, I will abjectly apologise until then all I am looking for is new players and off loading of our 'deadwood'.

The southern evening echo states that Mr Wang may buy saints but that at this moment in time there are no talks or negations in place.

It goes onto say that Kathrina Liebherr is seeking the quick appointment of a new CEO for the club. This would, I have to say, if it is correct of course would not be the behaviour of someone who was about to sell a business.

deep breaths all round but I think I was the first to suggest that NC and resignation may have been a piece of strategy on his part knowing that wang wanted the club.

Liebherr on the other hand, who if the press is to believed actually agreed to his demands at their meeting last week has just got bored with his various threats to leave and this time has said I accept the resignation.

She is lot more than someone who has inherited her fathers fortune, she is a respected business women who has run large organisations a whole lot bigger than saints. If she does sell the money she makes will be of little interest to a women who is worth several billion. What will matter is protecting her fathers wishes and his legacy in regards of the saints.

I am worried also that we will be a club that came from nothing and loads of plastic fans will turn to us and we'll all be called glory hunters, not the ideal way to get to the top like man city have done, I guess it will show how far we have really come in these past 5 years though

Football has always been about money and rich owners have been in place since the league system came into being.

Sunderland our opponents last weekend were in the post ww2 period known as the Bank of England club as they had rich board members who at the time spent big money bringing in players to their team.

Liverpool in their dominant period were funded by the Moores family who ran the pools in the UK they put millions into liverpool.

Football clubs being funded by wealthy individuals is nothing new here and abroad look at Real, AC, and now of course PSG.

Oh, and then there is Southampton, where do you reckon we would be if Markus L had not come in? Not inconceivable to believe that we would be playing pompey this coming weekend and within touching distance of going out of the league!

{Ed001's Note - Liverpool were not funded by the Moores family! John Moores was chairman of Everton during the 60s and 70s, his money was invested there, except for the brief hiatus he took while his wife was ill. I don't know where this lie about Liverpool being funded by the Littlewoods millions has come from, they bought players with money generated within the club. For instance they sold Keegan for more than the record fee they spent to bring Dalglish in. It was nothing to do with money, the likes of Forest outspent Liverpool during that period! The Moores family, in particular David in later times, took money out of the club, not put money in. I think people misunderstand the difference between owning shares as an investment and being a sugar daddy. In those days, putting millions into a club was not necessary as player's wages, travel expenses etc were so much lower. There was no payments for renovating the stadiums, cleaning them, repainting them etc as that was the job of the apprentices. To need millions from the Moores they would have needed to buy a new team each season, and that was the complete opposite of what actually happened.}

Got bored ed

{Ed001's Note - yeah, I had a bit of time on my hands and it is something I keep seeing on the net, when it is complete nonsense. People never bother to check, they just assume it must be true because these days footie is, sadly, all about money.}

The sums of money in the sixties and seventies / eighties were smaller than they are now. Sky and the formation of the premier league changed all that.

When David Moores and of course Rick Parry sold Liverpool to Hicks and Glllet for 300 Million (leveraged money of course) Mr Moores I believe made around 80 Million pounds.

He loved Liverpool but understood that he and his family did not have the financial resources to compete with clubs that were by the time of Liverpools sale being run by billionaires.

Liverpools period of greatness was built around great management and of course cash from their benefactors. They were not in money terms richer than their rivals but they were run by a wealthy family as were at this time Spurs, Arsenal, Man Utd, and many other clubs in the division and the football league.

The point is that Football has always been a sport where wealthy individuals are involved with the clubs that they support and try to seek advantage with that money.

The game has now changed with the coming of wealthy overseas buyers who invest enormous sums into clubs. But the principal remains the same to win things u need money and if anyone wants to deny that look at the top of four of the current premiership and then think about their ownership.

{Ed001's Note - he made 86m and only loves two things, himself and money. David Moores was taking huge sums of money out of the club and actually did have the ability to compete, but refused to invest any of his own money into the club. Which was my point, it was when clubs needed to have money pumped in that Liverpool dropped away. They didn't have a decent chairman any more, they had David Moores, who had an extremely large personal fortune but was not prepared to use any of it at all. Even the minor (relatively for a man of his wealth) sum of under 10m that would have been required from him, the rest being paid for by the club, for a new stadium/stadium renovation. That is why he sold up, because the other choice was to stop taking money out and put some back in.}

Do not want to be drawn on your personal comments about David Moores ed but here is a fact for you,

His father at Everton FC had a5% stake in the club. His son had a 51% stake in LiverpoolFC.
Stake in this case will equal shares, shares cost money. Therefore 51% of the shares in Liverpool would have cost quite a bit even 20 years ago. A far bit to put in I would say.

{Ed001's Note - none of that was put into the club, it was given to the previous shareholder that he bought the shares from. Only a flotation would give a club capital from the buying of shares.}

So please explain is football economics different from elsewhere, or did he get his shares for free and then get to walk away with £80 million (sorry £86 million) on the sale of the club.

How did he manage to obtain 51% of liverpools shares for free?

Back to the point in question ed football clubs are run in the main by wealthy individuals. Liebherr 3 billion, the moores family 750 million, FSG your current owners thought to have around billion of of liquid capital.

Good luck for the rest of the season and I hope that you make the top four because the way you guys have been managed in the last two decades in a tragedy for a fabulous football club who I still I think in the late eighties had the best english team I have seen.

That should start another argument

a saints fan

{Ed001's Note - what the hell has him buying the shares off someone else got to do with anything? If you don't understand that the money from a sale of shares only goes to the club on an initial flotation, then you are clearly just wasting my time. It doesn't matter where he got the shares from, as he didn't buy them off the club, so the club never received anything. There is no argument to be had, you are quite simply wrong, it doesn't matter how much money the Moores family had, they weren't spending it on Liverpool.}

He did not buy the shares ed he was gifted them by his family who had had them for fifty years when they bought into LFC. They were the majority shareholders, that is they were a wealthy family who owned your club.

In 1991/92 he (David) floated a large % of the shares (think I have got my years right) to build a new stand and fund new players for LFC.

However the float did not go well ( I am sure as fan you know all this ) and he came in with his own money to assist the club at that point.

He became you chair at this point as well I believe.

David Moores was a wealthy man before he became your chair and before he was gifted the shares.

He was a wealthy man who OWNED and sold Liverpool FC to a Couple of leveraged Amercians who ran u into the ground. That is the point as stated originally that Football clubs at the top of their leagues are run in the main by wealthy individuals.

How much they invest /spend is up to them. My point again is that rich people own top football clubs and always have done to a great degree.

After the sale he probably made good his losses to a great extent I would imagine but he did invest as did his family in LFC.

Just not enough for some I guess.

Just to finish it might be interesting to ask some Man U fans how the glaziers with their various share flotations have it would appear not benefitted their team. Funny old things share flotations particularly when your club is the hands of the rich who perhaps want to get more rich.

Just ask a saints fan about that.

{Ed001's Note - he never spent his own money, check up and you will find he loaned the money at a rate of interest.}

I think we should leave it there ed. All the best for the rest of the season and hope nick 4th place

{Ed001's Note - no worries mate, thanks and best of luck to your boys too, though I won't wish them luck on getting into Europe having seen what has happened to Swansea and Newcastle!}

19 Jan 2014 11:23:59
Very Very interesting, return for cortese with the richest man in china, saints could become the richest club in the Premier League.

19 Jan 2014 10:09:20
Lieberr willing to sell up and leave soon. Wang Jailan has accordingly put in a bid of around £175 million. Which will see a hefty return on what Marcus bought
the club for at £15 million. Cortese will take over executive chairman and see the day to day running of saints once again.

Hope so

Who wuld disagree with this explain yourself.

I don't normally 'agree' or 'disagree' with the majority of posts on here - but I would disagree with the above statement because the whole thing stems from a poster called 'mattletissier' or something like that, on the Saints Forum.

No where else.

Just one bloke on the Saints Forum and the national press have picked it up because it makes good press.

It doesn't stem from that at all, they may have been the first to post about it but it's been around for a long time before that. Cortese leaving, KL wanting to sell and Wang Jianlin knowing Cortese well just adds fuel to the fire. But rumours of us being taken over by him have been around a long time

19 Jan 2014 08:46:26
I said it the day cortese left, cortese will be behind a takeover big by wang jainlan the richest man in china and rated the 128th richest person in the world, if it was to happen this would make southampton fc the richest club in the PL.

This guy recently purchased luxury yacht sunseeker at 320 million. His bid for the saints that has already begun is believed to be at the 180 million mark.

This is the papers this morning and I have a friend who works at the club ver very close to poch and the team on a daily basis and it's confirmed :)

I promise this is no roumor guys so :)
Cortese is coming back and we will be in an even better position than before! When this happens I expect the new stadium to happy quickly!

Ben p
Basingstoke saint

{Ed002's Note - It does not make the club any "richer".}

Ed you're right, it doesn't make the club financially richer, but it does give them NC back!

Yes, the papers keep doing this too. An individual's personal wealth and the business they runs wealth does not automatically transfer to the football club. I'm sure any businessperson would not immediately transfer all their cash into any football club but instead make a 'certain' amount of money available.

This rumour which is all over the papers back pages seems to have originated from a poster called 'mattletissier' or something like that on the Saints Forum and no where else.

I constantly am reminded of the Microsoft Paul Allen saga from that very forum where you could ring up someone and he'd tell you all about it personally.

We now how true that turned out to be.

I'll believe this when I see it confirmed by a Southampton FC representative, either with a direct quote or on the Southampton FC website.

I'm not 'having a go' or being disrespectful but I think as Saints fans we have been made to look rather foolish too many times before over various aspects of the club.

Still no rumours of players with all this going on - so let's home the first 16 or so squad members don't pick up any injuries or long suspensions for the run in!

All I want is stability and continuing what was happening. 2 big signings each year as well as our youth makes things very exciting. No need to do a Chelsea or a Man City.

Hopefully this goes through quickly so we can invest in players

SunSeeker Sponsors on the shirts next season anyone?

St Mary's will never be expanded, it may have been cheap to build and it may be cheap to expand, but, if let's say, we have a 40k stadium, we'd have to have police/stewards/staff to cope with the 40k even if we we're only getting 30k in there. That would result in the club making a loss. Would Southampton even be able to cope with 40k descending on it every week? Another 10k people walking from Southampton Central and down Marine Parade is an accident waiting to happen. not only that but, Mr Jianlin owns the Dalian Wanda group, one of the worlds largest property development groups and AMC Entertainment. This leads me to believe we'll build a new stadium on the old Ford site. We could have a huge new stadium, a 5 star hotel, shopping centre and cinema complex, private train station and bus park (park and rides to the ground?) and adequate parking all built in house by his own company. Now, that could cope with the added number of people in a safe way AND if we could some how incorporate the Cinema and hotel into the clubs finances it would put us massively ahead when the FFP rules come in

Agreed. Just because they have the funds doesn't mean we are rich. The person involved still needs to inject money although yes I'm sure he will have the money to throw into whoever they wish to purchase.

I'm not excited at the prospect of buying the league. The club should remain grounded and build from grass roots level.

Invest more and more into the academy and training facilities, buy one or two world class players and build from there.

We don't want to be known for spending silly amounts on players just because other teams see us as an opportunity to charge high fees for their players as we have the funds to splash out

That is a stupid comment on expanding the stadium if we never had any plans to extend why would we build a stadium to allow for extension if we never had plans to

Also remember that there are spending limits on players now with the new rules on only being able to spend what you have turned. This itself makes us incredibly attractive, due to the fact that all of the best players and most expensive players in the whole wide world in the last 60 years have come through saints academy. ( ok tongue in cheek, however we do make world class players without having to buy them)

Because it's basically a kit stadium, Sunderland and Middlesbrough have pretty much the same thing and probably many other teams around the world, it can be expanded, but the likely hood is that it was built that way because it was the cheapest option

Would not make Saints any richer necessarily-but we would have more yachts than Chelsea!LOL

Saint Martin

If Saints did start "buying the Premier League title", how many of you would jump ship and support another club in protest, as you perhaps at the moment have vicious feelings towards sugardaddy clubs such as "Chelski" and "Moneychester City"?

Or would you happily stay aboard and enjoy the glory years, at the envy and hatred of many/every footy fan in the country? Making you then a total hypercritical buffoon, of course.

Just asking.

I for one, would be very p'ed off if we just (tried to) bought success. I'd rather see us develop our own, and follow the Ajax and Barcelona, Liverpool and Manchester United traditional ways. Like we are doing. Add a couple of big guns to it, and we'll have the perfect combination.

Also, on a side note, if the dream new stadium with cinema complex thing ever happens, it would be a great for the cinema to play live coverage of the Saints matches, with starters of classic moments from the club's history (1976 FA Cup final, 2010 JPT Final, and the day United changed their kit at half time, for example) "Le Tissier - The 100 greatest goals", and "Le Tissier & Lambert, The Penalty Kings" - It would be a money-spinner (Consider all the fans who can't get match tickets at stadium, they could come into the cinema and watch it there, with absolutely no atmosphere, instead!)

The most important thing is for the fans to still be able to support a club, their club, our club, and not be fleeced in terms of ticket prices (£62 for Arsenal's tickets, as an example) and merchandise etc. got to keep to our morals. Great football club.

Disappointed with the 2-2 draw at Sunderland. Throwing away another good lead. Should have finished them, but we played very well and scored ace goals. Shame, such a shame, about the injuries.

Saint Etienne.