Saint’s finances not so holy
Posted on | April 23, 2009 | 1 Comment
Even English football, with its super-slick television coverage, Champions League dominance, and gleaming new stadiums has one or two bad eggs.
Financial strife is one of them, and something truly must have stunk in the boardrooms of Southampton Football Club after it was docked 10 points by the Football League.
The decision means the ‘Saints’ will drop down to the third level of English football and comes after the club’s parent company went into administration.
The only consolation to the club’s fans is they are not alone – the likes of Leeds United and Luton have all had points stripped from them after financial problems.
I can remember going to Southampton’s St Mary’s ground when it was in its debut season back in 2001. It cost £32 million, and I remember it looked lovely, but much like about six new grounds which opened around the same period. Crucially, it looked nowhere near as intimidating to visiting teams compared to the club’s previous stadium, the Dell.
On that day Southampton played Arsenal – in the Premier League, and went down 0 – 2.
Towards the end of the game the fans in my end started up a chant.
“We should have stayed at the Dell”
It’s taken nearly eight years and millions of pounds, but now it looks like they were right.
Not the first team to overstretch itself in an effort to close the gap on England’s big clubs. The UK’s current recession guarantees they won’t be the last.
Chris Breese
Comments
One Response to “Saint’s finances not so holy”
Leave a comment
April 24th, 2009 @ 7:36 am
Dunno if not building the stadium would have made any difference. I guess we might never know. One more club slides from the prem to lge 1.