According to the latest reports Southampton owners Sport Republic are about to add another football club to their roster, news that might not go down too well with some Saints supporters.

Sport Republic are about to complete the takeover of French club Valenciennes according to GetFootballNewsFrance who are citing Le Equipe as their source.

The reports say that Sport Republic are now in exclusive talks with the owners of Valenciennes and that the French football financial watchdog DNCG has already been informed.

They go on to say that Sport Republic intent to immediately invest 15 million Euros into the club after they have completed the takeover.

This might not go down too well with some Saints supporters who might feel that the owners should be held to account for what has happened at Southampton over the last year and that the money would be far better spent rebuilding SFC.

I would not subscribe to that, whilst suspicion still hangs over Sport Republic and their ability to restore Saints to former glory, whilst they remain our owners we have no other option but to trust them and that means give them the chance to repair the damage and in that respect they have started to do that.

Whilst Saints is a priority, they still have to carry on with the project that they started with the acquisition of Saints and subsequently Turkish club Goztepe and that means continuing with the plans they have for buying other football clubs, which we hope would mean some mutual benefit between clubs in the roster.

Valencienes are currently in Ligue 2 of the French League, they have resided there since 2014, having previously been in Ligue 1 for the previous 8 years, last season they finished 16th out of 20 in that division.

Like Saints their club colours are red & white and they play at the Stade Du Hainaut which as a capacity of 25,000, their nickname is Les Athéniens.

Valenciennes itself is a town in the North of France right on the border with Belgium, it's population is 42,000 which doubles with the addition of it's metropolitan area.

Photo: Action Images

Block8 added 10:26 - Jun 13 Their stated aim to build a portfolio of football clubs should be well known to all of our fans & 15million Euros is not a great sum in football terms. The upside of this is the ability to loan players, particularly promising youngsters between clubs and allow them game time. Hopefully for us the fans it speeds up progression & for the owners helps add sell on value. In reality SR is just a more business orientated form of how Saints have been for a long long time, get them young build them up and sell on for big money. If it works well it gives us a better financial base, throughout all clubs in the group! COYR

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saint66 added 17:55 - Jun 14 Perhaps these owners should learn how to run a club successfully before they purchase other clubs. The demise of Southampton Football Club can be laid at at the door of the owners. Their incompetence in the selection of the two managers since the sacking of Ralph says it all and the lengthy drawn out cut price employment of Mr Martin is no better. Anyone who thinks the Saints will fly back up into the Premiership in my humble opinion are deluded,but hey ho miracles do sometimes happen.

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Flamingbankers added 09:46 - Jun 15 Mutual benefit! So saints are going to cooperate with teams in the lower reaches of their respective second divisions and benefit and make money from that! What a great business model! Hilarious, dream on. That's chancer's game not a sensible owner's commitment. Owners should have a visible commitment to one team and one team only.
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