Saints have a date with destiny this week

Its a cruch week for Southampton FC as they head into a week that could eand with an EGM when it looks certain that Rupert Lowe will walk back into the Club alongside Michael Wilde and oust Rupert Lowe, but in truth I feel that the chances of that EGM happening are absolutely nil.

One of two things will happen in the lead up to the day, fisrtly the mystery investors that Leon Crouch keeps referring to, might just lay their money on the table or secondly with no investor forthcoming Crouch would surely want to avoid public humiliation and would stand down prior to the EGM.

If an investor does step up to the plate though there are surely many questions that will need to be asked before their bid is accepted and i feel that perhaps there wont be time to answer them prior to Friday and therefore the departure of Crouch is somewhat inevitable unless the investors offer him a role.

That being the case i fully expect the Lowe/Wilde camp to be taking up residence, however how long they are there for, is another matter.

One thing that has surprised me in reading several message boards, is how little fans actually know about the process, the most popular misconception being that to take over Lowe/Wilde will need at least 51% of the vote, totally wrong, of course technically they would do, but this would be in the case of a 100% attendance at the polls, in most companies this would never happen and with the share make up at Saints even less so, so when L & W say they have 46%, in truth they and Crouch both know they have an unassailable percentage, indeed lowe himself stepped down when faced with a lesser percentage two years ago.

The second myth is that it actually matters who is in charge with regard to a takeover, the fac tit is doesnt matter one iota, any potential buyer needs the majority shareholding as a starting point and when as we have  mentioned, the real majority is about 46% perhaps lower, then they would still need to purchase something approaching these figures. Lowe& Wilde would state that as they speak for 46% then any potential buyer would prefer to deal with them first in that he could potentially take control of the club easily by dealing with them.

On the other hand Leon Crouch is in power and probably speaks for less than 20% of the shareholding, Lowe & Wilde would contend he is in no position to negotiate with potential buyers as the future of the club lies in their hands.

Whatever happens, the only thing that is for sure is that it wont be the fans who get what they deserve.

There is a saying in India "When two elephants fight, the thing that suffers most is the grass"  never could something epitomise the situation that we fans find ourselves in and have done for the past few years.             

Photo: Action Images

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