Virgil van Dijk

Christ, the bitterness towards Southampton in this thread is shocking. As the old saying goes, don't hate the player, hate the game.

 

I don't really mind Southampton. They've got a good academy, have a similar transfer policy to ours, have used both to there advantage to climb the league (not some sugar daddy cash flow like city or Chelsea) and don't have scumbag fans like some English teams. Decent eye for a manager as well, a club that actually deserves to be where it is.

 

Borne out of frustration. The way it is that they keep coming up every year and buying our best players. Very depressing that the way mad money works in football that a team like Southampton can do that to a team like Celtic.

Not helped by that wee * with his annual log on winding people up (just me?).

I'm not blaming the players, the one's who have gone and potentially will aren't naturally Celtic fans. Short careers, large salaries & worldwide exposure. I wonder when it's all over will they think 'that was a great couple of seasons down at St Mary's' or 'remember that night when we beat the best team in the world in front of 60,000 screaming Celtic fans?'

I'd be equally depressed if it was Hull City, Swansea, Stoke etc...

 

They do have a sugar daddy mate, well sugar mummy. Google Katharina Liebherr - not quite as stratospheric as the two you mention, but they'd have died if her father hadn't bought them and then pumped lots of money in (before dying).

 

Have they not been close to admin quite recently?

I would be astonished if they don't lose millions a year that someone is
Picking up the tab for, so the sugar daddy bit might be slightly flawed.

The best thing about southampton was le tissier.:icon_mrgreen:

 

Sensible post.

Also we buy players for £2-3m and sell them for £10-12m and Southampton buy players for £10-12m and sell them for £20-25m. Their best players get bought every year as well so they're in the exact same position as us, just in a league with more money. They give us a good price for Wanyama and Forster and I would imagine for VVD if he geos there.

If Liverpool stopped buying all heir best players maybe they would stop buying ours - so if you want to hate anyone, hate Liverpool. They're * anyway.

 

Don't see how people can complain about Southampton buying 3 of our players when we've just done the exact same thing to Dundee United.

As others have said it's not like they've shafted us on fees or anything.

 

Funnily enough, where we like to bemoan the English sides only being in the position they're in due to money, there's a lot of fans of other Scottish clubs that complain about us only being where we are due to a mixture of religion & the segregation in Scottish culture.

It swings & roundabouts I guess.

 

This is undoubtedly true. ( Probably a bit before Ted's time though.)

 

Probably a bit of jealousy, no doubt. Doesn't help when we get posters coming on, yearly, talking us and our product down. With the resources from sky, would Southampton be a bigger club than hearts or the sheep on an even keel or roles reversed? I doubt it..

No surprise that 4 posters to bite, are in the south of England, and hear this kinda * all the time..

 

The last accounts available for Southampton (2013/14) show... £106m turnover and a £33.4m profit and that is before the players they sold in the summer of 2014.

http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/article/20150330-southampton-financial-results-2013-14-2367070.aspx

The profit for 2014/15 is likely to have been even bigger and the same for 2015/16. In terms of business model, they have been extremely well run.

 

Aye any CEO in the EPL who get their club into debt in the EPL should be getting their jotters.

Cash is spunked on them from all angles.

 

None of my posts are to wind Celtic fans up, I'm just setting some myths straight about Southampton. I haven't said anything derisory about Celtic.

 

Indeed. Southampton fans are probably saying the same about Liverpool though!

 

The bitterness on this thread is crazy.

A lot of posters on this thread are way 'snobbier' than the epl fans we moan about.

Calling a stadium with over 30k capacity pokey is idiotic.

Southampton seem to be one of the best run clubs in the UK.

If you think they are run by their sugar daddy/mammy then you must also think we are run that way since we also have a billionaire shareholder?

 

This seems to be the relative footballing food chain these days:

Dundee Utd > Celtic > Southampton > Liverpool > Barcelona

 

You wouldn't think that though :smiley-laughing002:

 

You're first profit year since admin, I assume the years leading up to admin weren't profitable. S you had 1 good year or,,,,

Does the below mean you aren't really in profit as a club, just fudging the figures?

The financial statements over the last three years show a total net cash outflow on player trading of £58m and investment in Group infrastructure of £28m (training ground and stadium projects). This cash outflow of £86m has been funded by £14m of total profit after tax over the three-year period, leaving an additional £72m to be effectively funded by an increase in the total Group debt position.
Read more at http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/arti...ults-2013-14-2367070.aspx#xqVEsJ8BQwvrU8sP.99

 

- Southampton Football Club has never legally been in adminsitration. As its never been in administration it has never needed a CVA. Southampton Leisure holdings (which owned a number of companies) went into admin and the football club didn't. The football club was merely an asset of another company and was sold off as an asset to the Liebherr's.
- Compare that to Portsmouth for example whose parent company Convers Sports Initiatives and Portsmouth Football Club were both legally in administration and both needed a CVA.
- Or compare it to Rangers Football Club who went into admin and needed a CVA but failed to agree one.

Three different situations.

The Liebherr's have invested money to progress the club to the Premier League form League 1, but now as a top half Premier League club they will likely be making a big profit every season.

Those accounts with the £33.4m profit are for 2013/14, the 2014/15 accounts are likely to have had a bigger profit especially as they will include the sales from the summer of 2014. The 2016 to 2019 £5 billion TV deal will see a huge increase in TV money for Saints if in the Premier League.

Now that the £40m of training ground improvements has been in construction and the main phase 1 is completed with the smaller works of phase 2 underway, they won't need to be spending their income on that for many years as it will be at a very high level of quality.

 

Got nothing but respect for Southampton. well-run club with focus on development. A lot of people are just angry because English clubs with smaller fan bases now are much richer than us