Saints could still get a wad of cash if Gareth Bale gets a big money move away from White Hart Lane.
Its generally thought that when Gareth Bale moved from St Mary's to Tottenham Hotspur in 2007 that Saints banked an initial fee which with add on's could rise to around the £12 million mark over a fairly short period of time if Bale progressed rapidly, of course back in the dark days as Saints headed towards administration the deal was renegotiated as Saints needed the cash there and then and at that time Bale was not progressing as all parties had hoped, indeed there was even talk of a move to Nottingham Forest for a cut price fee, such had his stock dipped, Spurs to their credit helped Saints out of a corner when they agreed to pay up early when at the time there was no guarantee that they would have to pay more, of course it was advantageous to them because the money paid would be less than their possible liability, but they helped us out all the same.
The big question back then though was the sell on clause, was there originally one and if so had part of the negotiations in 2008 seen the removal of it, the answer at least according to a Saints board member at the time quoted in the Daily Echo, seems to be there was no such clause in the original deal.
Saints fans of course are now left to ponder "what if" as Gareth Bale is the subject of multi million pound interest from Real Madrid and it is now emerging that they could after all be the recipient of a windfall if the transfer or indeed any other big money move goes through.
It seems that FIFA has provision in its rules that when a player is sold like this a "Solidarity Contribution" must be paid to former clubs who were responsible for the players development between the ages of 12 and 23 and that payment is 5% of the transfer to be shared between eligible clubs, Saints and Spurs themselves are therefore entitled to a proportion of that percentage and its believed that Saints share would be 2.5%.
So if Spurs were to sell Gareth Bale for say £85 million pounds then Saints share of that would be £2, 125,000 a not insignificant amount.
So all Saints fans will probably now be hoping for a move to Spain for Bale, not just of course for the fact that it will make Spurs a much easier side to beat next season without the Welsh Wizard but because the coffers will be swelled.
Sadly though in todays cash rich Premier League £2 million helps, but isn't crucial to any club given the cash they already receive, so wouldn't it be nice if Saints did something for the fans with that cash, perhaps they could provide free coach travel to every away game as Stoke City have done, this has an estimated cost of around £850,000 so would leave plenty of change left over still, or if they wanted to give all of it to the fans perhaps they could give a rebate on season tickets, £2 million divided by around 22,000 season ticket holders would equal around £90 each.