Together As One? That doesn't always seem the case (From Daily Echo)
When news happens, text SDE and your photos or videos to 80360. Or contact us by email and phone.
Together As One? That doesn't always seem the case for Saints off-the-field
11:03am Monday 19th November 2012 in View from the Chapel
By Dan Kerins, Digital Editor
IT’S hard when your club, something you’ve invested time and love into, does something to lower itself in your estimation.
Like many football fans, my love for Saints means I overlook a multitude of sins when I certainly wouldn’t do so for other businesses.
Ticket prices, warm beer, poor service – loyalty is blind to all these types of things, to a point.
However, Saints have most certainly not covered themselves in glory in recent days.
In case you missed it, they were taken to court by a local firm which had not been paid for work done at St. Mary’s, refurbishing one of the corporate suites.
It wasn’t a huge amount of money by Premier League standards – £55,000 was the outstanding amount.
That’s less than Gaston Ramirez earns a week.
There was no reason offered as to why Saints didn’t pay. The club chose not to send anyone to represent them in court.
In effect, they offered no defence – not for the first time this season, you may snigger.
The court demanded Saints pay up immediately, having ignored an adjudication a few months back.
The reason this leaves a sour taste is that many supporters quite rightly have chastised Portsmouth for leaving so many small local firms high and dry when that club went into administration.
Now Saints are doing exactly the same – whilst supposedly having huge amounts of money behind them, either from the Liebherr estate, the Premier League or this mystery loan the club have.
Football clubs are big businesses these days, we all know that. We’ve come a long way from being a local club owned by a few rich men from the city whom you'd probably see in your local boozer.
That’s not to say the club exists in isolation from the community that supports it. The local firms you don’t pay are not just figures on an invoice.
They are the people who buy your tickets, wear your shirts and take their children to see your players. They are you.
Together As One is the club’s marketing slogan this season. But if the club isn’t willing to pay what it owes to the people that make up its local community, we are left in no doubt as to how much stock the club gives that catchphrase – absolutely none.
Are there other firms in similar positions, having not been paid by Saints? I’d love to say there definitely aren’t any but I don’t know.
If this is something Southampton FC does regularly, not only is it risking the livelihoods of ordinary people, it is hurting itself. It’s alienating itself from the very people it needs, its lifeblood. The fans.
If you couldn’t put food on your table because Saints hadn’t paid their bill, I don’t think any amount of Rickie Lambert goals would gloss over it. Perhaps the club would do well to consider that.
Comments(17)
dronskisaint
says...
12:52pm Mon 19 Nov 12
dronskisaint
says...
12:54pm Mon 19 Nov 12
SaintsBTGOG
says...
1:08pm Mon 19 Nov 12
Results on the pitch do not change these facts regarding how Cortese is a liability to the name of our club. As for people saying the article writer doesnt understand business ! LOL The Staplewood contractor worked off site due to non payments. Ex staff have taken legal action to get money that was owed to them.
The sooner Clotese gets out of Saints the better.
ProfoundSadness
says...
2:15pm Mon 19 Nov 12
TheSaintsMan
says...
4:49pm Mon 19 Nov 12
Is there no positivity anywhere???
COYR!!!
Ciaran
says...
5:17pm Mon 19 Nov 12
TheSaintsMan wrote:I challenge you to find ONE story when the Echo says Adkins should be sacked.
This is laughable. When we do badly the Echo says Adkins should be sacked, when we do well they create some other negative story.
Is there no positivity anywhere???
COYR!!!
When you do, post the link here - unless of course you are talking nonsense, in which case you can just apologise for lying.
What's the bigger crime - the club doing something wrong or is it the Echo telling people the club has done something wrong?
I know which of those two I think is a problem and which isn't.
Tirau Dan
says...
7:27pm Mon 19 Nov 12
You also don't say why SFC withheld payment when they so obviously have no financial problem.
So why is this a loyalty issue?
It also has nothing to do with the temperature of beer or price of a ticket. When I came over in 2010 I paid $27 for a L1 Brighton game..
Thats nothing to do with the progress at Staplewood.
Do you not think there is a statement being made by the club that they are not happy with something the builder has done or not done and the builder has been told what that is but as usual Saints don't air business in public?
That's the way I see it.
Furthermore Dan.. I thought better of you than to poke Pompey analogies. When the Swiss group took over SFC they promptly paid the Southampton debts and proudly stated so in the media.
Is it stories like this that keep the club away from the Echo...
I don't know. Touché.
ÚTS
says...
8:31pm Mon 19 Nov 12
Its nothing to do with airing dirty laundry - giving a decent reason to the judge would have saved SFC £60000!!!!
The club took out a loan just a few weeks ago so much for not beleiving in debt (you can see the documents on COmpanies House).
Please, stop seeing conspiracy theories. Saints are in the wrong here and the Echo are quite right to call them out on it.
Like Dan Kerrins says, the club is supposed to be part of the community but it doesnt look like its trying to be a good neighbour if you have to take it to court to get money it owes you (and wont give a reason for not paying you).
Andy Lombardi
says...
8:51am Tue 20 Nov 12
City Saint
says...
12:29am Wed 21 Nov 12
We were all there for saints through the hard times, and we would be if needed again.
Do right by local business, Cortese, or at the very least have the decency to explain your actions if you get sued and lose.
dronskisaint
says...
7:50am Wed 21 Nov 12
Stroppy_gramps
says...
1:44pm Thu 22 Nov 12
If someone takes you to court and you know that they are in the right and therefore going to win. Furthermore, you know pretty much what the court is going to decide - pay the debt and pay costs.
Is there any point defending? Is there any point spending money on expensive lawyers? Is there any point even attending?
No. There isn't. This strikes me as a pro-forma court case that had to run its course, everyone knew the outcome and so Saints quite rightly chose not to make a meal of it and just pay the debt plus costs.
In fact if you want to spin it another way - Saints paid the costs of the case so the company concerned got their debt AND got their costs paid. Is that a mean and nasty gesture? No it's not.
Keep spinning DE. you're making up stories because you can't get anything decent to report. Go and sort your differences out with the club.
ÚTS
says...
9:39pm Thu 22 Nov 12
Stroppy_gramps wrote:
here's a thought for you:
If someone takes you to court and you know that they are in the right and therefore going to win. Furthermore, you know pretty much what the court is going to decide - pay the debt and pay costs.
Is there any point defending? Is there any point spending money on expensive lawyers? Is there any point even attending?
No. There isn't. This strikes me as a pro-forma court case that had to run its course, everyone knew the outcome and so Saints quite rightly chose not to make a meal of it and just pay the debt plus costs.
In fact if you want to spin it another way - Saints paid the costs of the case so the company concerned got their debt AND got their costs paid. Is that a mean and nasty gesture? No it's not.
Keep spinning DE. you're making up stories because you can't get anything decent to report. Go and sort your differences out with the club.
If someone takes you to court and you know that they are in the right and therefore going to win
Then why not just pay them what you owe them in the first place rather than making them take you to court?
There is no possible way the club can be painted as the good guys in this.
Jesus_02
says...
2:42pm Mon 26 Nov 12
I’m interested in a couple of points of fact here, Dan states that this is less than Gaston Remerez gets paid a week. How much does he get paid a week and how do the Echo know that information?
Also UTS states that Saints took out a loan. How much for and where can people see this information. I would find this the most concerning fact of all.
Dan Kerins
says...
5:59pm Tue 27 Nov 12
Jesus_02 wrote:Before he signed, Gaston Ramirez told the Italian press that Saints had offered him £35k a week net (what he gets after tax and deductions), which works out as somewhere between £60k and £70k a week gross, roughly.
55k is a lot of cash for a smaller business to be waiting for…Saints are in the wrong here.
I’m interested in a couple of points of fact here, Dan states that this is less than Gaston Remerez gets paid a week. How much does he get paid a week and how do the Echo know that information?
Also UTS states that Saints took out a loan. How much for and where can people see this information. I would find this the most concerning fact of all.
As for the information about the loan, if you look in the article above, I've linked the phrase " this mystery loan the club have" to the relevant article, which is what I imagine UTS is talking about.
Thornhill Saint
says...
9:05pm Tue 27 Nov 12
"Soccer Apparel Supplies Ltd (SAS) is a bespoke clothing importer, specialising in soccer merchandising. It ships high fashion, highly branded products into the UK and sells them to the major football clubs. Ambitious to grow the business beyond the confines of the top four divisions of the football league, the directors of the company have recently broadened the offering to appeal to the corporate market, importing top brands such as Rizla and Cobra, and it intends to continue to develop this customer base.
In addition to the working capital requirements for on-going expansion, the nature of the business model necessitates external funding. Marc Cohen, the business owner explains, “Football clubs are notoriously slow payers, and the credit cycle would be a big stretch without finance."
The court case refered to by DK is special, and even a little bizarre in that there was no defence. It is nothing to be proud of but indications are Saints are not alone in their slow payment of suppliers and in this respect at least stand with their fellow clubs, "together as one"
Maybe we could start a "Non payment of suppliers 'aint Saintly" campaign locally. But is this realistic, fair or wise when it could put our club at a disadvantage. A national KDDOF (Kick Delinquent Debtors out of Football) campaign would be more far more appropriate.
In the meantime, loved the game against Newcastle. Tommorow (if not sooner) I for one will suspend my pontificating, put this to the back of my mind and support the team!!!!!!
This includes Cortese who may not be perfect but has saints interests at heart, lofty ambitions, and has done an amazing job so far in taking our club where we want it to be!
#1saintsfan says...
12:06pm Mon 19 Nov 12