Saints will look to turn themselves into a major player on the global sporting stage if a £190m takeover from Chinese investors goes through.

Lander Sports Development have been in talks with Saints owner Katharina Liebherr for the best part of a year over a potential investment at St Mary’s, but even officials inside the club had all but given up hope of anything happening after the trail went cold two months ago.

That coincided with the end of Lander’s exclusivity period to try and get a deal done, with it being understood that the Chinese firm were unwilling to part with around £180m for a potential minority stake.

However, fresh reports have indicated that Liebherr’s representatives have negotiated a settlement whereby she would get £190m, and retain a minority stake, which would be a more palatable deal for such heavy investors.

There is still a level of uncertainty at the club as to exactly what may be afoot.

The takeover talks are with representatives of Liebherr as the owner of the business, rather than with the club and their officials directly.

Few would blame Liebherr if she decided to sell at least a portion of the club.

The Liebherrs have invested around £69m in Saints, including the original purchase of the club by the late Markus Liebherr.

What few realise is that Markus only invested £16m of the overall total himself, with the remaining £53m funded by Katharina – sometimes maligned by fans for not pouring cash into the coffers - after she inherited the club.

Katharina is also not worth the reported billions often attributed to her.

Markus split from the family business, which is worth more than £1bn, with Katharina inheriting his business interests after he died.

She is still very wealthy, but her worth is speculated to be more in the hundreds of millions, meaning the price offered for the club is still a significant return on her and her father’s investment.

However, Katharina has continually made it clear that she would only sell if she felt it was in the best interests of the club.

With Saints keen to establish themselves as regular challengers for European football, an influx of cash from China could be seen as the answer.

Chinese companies, often backed by the state, have been investing in sport, and the hope for Saints would be not only an investment of capital into the business, but also a wider global footprint.

Saints are pushing on with their development in the US, but have yet to make a significant indent in the Far East.

With the club targeting an increase in commercial revenue to make them competitive with some of the Premier League’s bigger clubs, this could open a gateway.

The club last week revealed their accounts for the year ending June 2016, which showed a modest profit and underlined the investment in the playing squad.

While broadcast revenues continue to rise, chief executive Gareth Rogers was keen to highlight just how important commercial growth is to the business if they are to compete with the Premier League big guns.

“The growth in turnover is certainly the longer term ambition of the club and not just because that’s what we should be doing, but as a club we were underperforming from a turnover perspective,” he said.

“If you want to go right back to the 1960s and probably before that and look at player wages, they have only gone in one direction.

“Is it right for us to always rely on broadcasting income? We have to rely on that significantly but we don’t want that to be our sole source of income. We want to supplement that to become more competitive.

“Something levelled at many football clubs is that you have the broadcasting income and so you don’t need to worry about commercial income as it is so small.

“Well actually everybody has the broadcasting income and the difference between the top and the bottom is not that great in the spread in the Premier League.

“Therefore, your competitive advantage comes from being able to have greater commercial income.

“Look at the top six clubs and their competitive advantage comes from massive commercial income, not necessarily from broadcasting. That puts them in the Champions League which gets them greater broadcasting income, but the commercial income is huge and not what the Premier League brings you.

“It’s not a significant portion of our income, but it’s the competitive advantage it brings us.”

Liebherr is scheduled to be repaid £31m in loans she has given the club, but this is a possibility rather than a certainty.

It again underlines the size of the investment she has made in Saints in a bid to deliver the kind of club her father wanted.

Katharina invested heavily to lend the club money at a time when Saints’ finances were looking rocky, with the current regime having tried to build a more solid footing.

In his accounts release interview, Rogers explained: “When we spoke two or three years ago we always said the level of debt was going to grow in order to arrest the cash outflows happening within the business, we had to do that, we had to stabilise the club, to make it sustainable and grew the revenue to how the club was going to develop going forward.

“At some point in time when we spoke back then we had to arrest that level of debt.

“We can’t continue with the level of debt the club has compared to its turnover. It’s not healthy, it’s not right for the club to continue to operate with a £62m debt level.

“Next year we will end up with turnover much higher than at the moment because of the new broadcasting contracts, but it’s too high and not healthy for the club to continue with that going forward.

“However we reduce the debt, and whoever that debt is reduced against, we can’t continue that moving forward.”

Of most immediate concern to Saints fans will be exactly what Lander want with their club, and to be reassured that Liebherr is selling for the right reasons, rather than pure profit.

Though the club cannot say anything even if they wanted to at this stage of proceedings, they are able to point to the rare statement she issued when Lander went public with their interest – something they were forced to do as they are listed on the Chinese stock exchange, which might prove the next definitive source of information if this develops further.

Libeherr said: “I am writing to you in relation to an announcement made in China today about Southampton Football Club and Lander Holding.

“Please understand that I can only make limited comments regarding this process but I can assure you that any steps we do take will be in the best interests of the club. A potential partnership would need to clear multiple approvals and fulfil strict criteria before being confirmed.

“The Premier League is increasingly competitive; we need to keep moving forward and look to new markets for commercial growth, innovation and to share our journey. Together we have had many years of progression and success, and ensuring this continues is the main focus of any possible partnership.”