It has been revealed that Nicola Cortese was paid a massive £1.96 million in the last financial year ending in June 2013.

It was no secret that Nicola Cortese was on a good salary at Saints indeed in the season that Saints earned promotion it was revealed that he had pocketed around £1.4 million for that year, although that was far in excess than most Premier League CEO's it was believed that it also included bonus's for getting Saints to the top flight.

the latest accounts reveal that last season his earnings increased even further and that he received a total of £1, 965.511 for his troubles plus a contribution into a pension scheme of £163, 092 bringing his total renumeration to over £2 million pounds for the year excluding other benefits.

In comparison to other Chairmen/ CEO's for the previous year ending 2012 David Gill the CEO of Manchester United then, earned £2.6 million, on average though the going rate for a CEO in the Premier appears to be around the £1.1 million paid to West Brom's CEO with that of Stoke City earning a shade over £500,000.

Daniel Levey at Spurs earned 2.2 million and his counterpart at Arsenal £2 million, given the differences in turnover for the likes of Manchester United, Spurs and Arsenal, it could be said that Cortese was paying himself the salary of the Captain of a Luxury Ocean Liner whilst only being the skipper of a cross channel ferry.

But perhaps the reason why Katharina Liebherr didnt think she was getting value for money from her CEO is when you look at the financial figures in the accounts, any company doesn't mind paying big bucks for its CEO but that individual has to be earning that salary, yes under Cortese we returned to the premier League so we received a big chunk of cash, but aside from that we were not bringing in the revenue that other Premier league clubs were, as revealed our Commercial Income was worth around £6.5 million in 12/13, just about the lowest in the division and around half of the next lowest earner, Mr Cortese was earning the same as the Arsenal CEO but for the Gunners he was bringing in around £50 million in commercial income excluding matchday and Premier league earnings.

Spurs likewise brought in £35 million from Sponsorship and Corporate hospitality, £9 million in merchandising and £9 million from other commercial activities, the message was clear we were paying our ex CEO top dollar, but he was not performing at top dollar level.

Of course we are not of the size of Spurs and Arsenal, so lets look at Stoke City as a similar size club although paying their CEO a quarter of Cortese's salary, in 2011/12 aside from the TV, gate receipts and premier income they brought in, £6 ,million in sponsorship and advertising, £3 million in conferencing and hospitality, £3.6 million in merchadising, over double our earnings last season, oh and you can add to that £5 million from the Europa league earnings which dispels the myth there is no money to be made from that competition.

But it was not just the lack of income that would have rung alarm bells in Switzerland, the lack of advertising hoardings and empty Corporate boxes was a lot of potential income lost not only this season but last, but perhaps what really made Katharina Liebherr realise that the club wasnt being run properly was the amount of cash being wasted.

The training ground project was initially going to cost around £15 million, 3 years later and its still not finished and the cost has spiraled to over £30 million, add to that the amount of money wasted on signing players who have contributed little to the cause, Ramirez £12 million, Mayuka £3.5 million, Forren £3.5 million, again whilst every club would expect to have a player or two not come good, financially for 2012/13 we spent around £30 million around 2/3 of that was spent on those 3 aforementioned players who contributed little, for a club like Saints you can live with perhaps a quarter of the money wasted but not to the percentage we did in transfer dealings.

This is not including the other areas that might have concerned Katharina like the high turnover of staff, many of whom pursued the club and won through industrial tribunals and won, or the high profile legal action with Francis Benali, perhaps the drop in the ocean but never the less not what you want to be reading about as the owner of the club.

So the message out of the club is clear over the past few weeks, yes Nicola Cortese steered us to the Premier League by his selection of managers, but that was only a small part of his job and he was earning a salary not commiserate with his performance in all of his key areas, after 3 years in charge when we returned to the Premier League the infrastructure should really have been in place to utilise the commercial opportunities now opening up to us as a club, but they werent and those financial opportunities went untapped.

Perhaps supporters dont care about what happens off the field, all they care about is performance on it, but commercial income is key to that, if 2013/14 income is similar to 12/13 then we will perhaps have earned around £15 million less over that period than clubs of a similar size, that could have bought us two good players if invested wisely and those two players might well have enabled us to challenge for a higher place in the league.

There is a bright future for Saints, as Nicola Cortese did when he sacked Nigel Adkins because he felt he had taken us as far as he could, Katharina Liebherr probably thought something similar about Nicola Cortese, he did not have the experience neccessary to run a lub in the Premier league it was now time to put that experience in place.

The saddest thing though as I have been saying for the past few years, it didnt have to be like that for Nicola Cortese, if he had embraced rather than alienated the business community of Southampton and allowed a succession of marketing directors to do their job, then perhaps that commerical income would have been in place and Cortese himself would still be here to bask in the glory, although there is that sneaking suspicion given the lack of a concrete and sustainable business plan that he saw his future here long term.

Photo: Action Images

Butty101 added 15:02 - Apr 9 I personally don't be grudge him it. His aim was to get us to the prem not get all the advertising boards full. If hes to blame for poor signings then hes to be congratulated for all the good ones that will make us money and i include in that bringing Poch who has improved lallana ten fold. You are right the other bits need improving and it will be interesting to see where we are in a2 years time when the new guys imapct can be measured.

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SaintNick added 15:04 - Apr 9 His aim might have been Premier League, but his employers aims for the club required more than that
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slynch added 15:18 - Apr 9 Ezekiel 24:14 (He) will be judged by his deed And he deed get Saints back in the EPL which was his instruction from Him(and her) on High.
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SonicBoom added 15:19 - Apr 9 To be honest NC was an employee. Surely the family should have been managing him a lot better? They paid him the money. If he was acting in an uncontrolled manner then perhaps they should have acted earlier. Whether his salary was excessive or not, its odd that he seems to shoulder the blame. KL should have been keeping a better eye on her families investment?
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SaintNick added 16:14 - Apr 9 Problem was Sonic that like Lowe the corporate governance wasnt there, Cortese was Chairman so his job was to oversee from afar the running of the club with the CEO reporting directly to him, but he was also CEO so he had no one to report to. Its clear that KL had misgivings at least a year ago, hence all the stuff end of last season and rumours of Real Madrid etc who funnily enough didnt seem to follow up their interest, it has taken them time to unravel the situation and deal with it, given that saints is a minor issue for them, after markus death there was far more to sort out

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davepid added 16:43 - Apr 9 So nick I take it you won't be voting for him as CE of the year.
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SaintNick added 17:29 - Apr 9 no Dave you can take that as read lol
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cheltenhamsaint added 18:23 - Apr 9 I have mixed thoughts about Cortese and am not perturbed by the salary. On one hand he was pivotal in taking our club by the scruff of its neck and haul it forward but he also was a gambler, ultimately not staking his own money. His vision to appoint the unknown manager Pottechino gives him a big thumbs up, in my opinion, but to later declare at a business seminar as a speaker that the head coach/team manager is a departmental head no more important than the head of IT or catering, is staggeringly arrogant. He gave Lallana, Lambert, Shaw long contracts which was very astute but he also applied the same strategy to Mayuka (5 years) and probably others that we are now stuck with for a while. Forren was the key one for me that he was trying to be the ultimate maestro. Adkins in his last interview (post the Chelsea match) was asked about the potential new signing replied "You'll have to ask the chairman about that". The next day he is sacked, Forren signed and he never got onto the pitch under MP, clearly showing MP had no input either. There is a very strong rumour that he was about to sell Lambert to WHU in January against the wishes of the player and manager, in the days before he departed. I think MP was realising that he was just a department head and was to do as he was told with the players he is given, or have taken away, hence his change in stance about going if Cortese left. Overall, I think Cortese deserves a lot of credit but it was a game of Russian Roulette where the stakes were getting higher and higher,t hat I think Ms Liebherr had not alternative to reign in.

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SaintGeorge added 21:36 - Apr 9 earned?
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SaintGeorge added 21:36 - Apr 9 earned?
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ItchenNorth added 21:40 - Apr 9 Money well spent, as no question he delivered. The owners took the view that it was time to change things, we'll see how this pans out over the summer (managers contract and tranfer activities) and beyond into next season.
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SaintlyTim added 00:01 - Apr 10 Much of the commercial income of any club comes from shirt sponsorship and NC, rightly or wrongly, chose Aap, a local business. In our 125th year, we had no shirt sponsor. I'm not sure when the Aap deal finishes but would welcome a big deal when it does. Liebherr?!
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Whatsforpud added 12:15 - Apr 10 The club could increase its income by scrapping its policy of wasting seats by putting up the dividing netting at the Northam end. There are a number of Premier clubs who don't do it. The two sets of fans need only be divided by a natural aisle, with a few steward sitting between. Ok, There would be more stewarding costs, but 'selling out' in one of the 8 or 9 big games would mean 500 of so more tickets sold.

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davepid added 17:53 - Apr 10 Picking upWhatsforpud point. Saints Mary's is well endowed with aisles and exits,. I reckon you could easily convert some of these to seating and still be within H&S requirements. That and getting rid of the net would increase gate receipts a bit The real comparison for commercial income is , whether the 40% increase he secured in his first year in the premiership is comparable to those other promoted clubs increase in 2012/3- west ham and reading. Or indeed comparing Norwichs income given they had the same rise to glory as us only a season earlier. PS if stokes CE is only on half a million! he should apply for a pay rise. You have to feel sorry for him really.

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ClickInsect added 18:14 - Apr 11 Loads of agenda to these articles. Context is everything, the context missing is that the owners have invested 50 million pounds into an asset which is now worth several times that. Cortese was the man that delivered that 150 million + value, in a market where other investments in football league clubs are leading nowhere. As an equity share & comparable to other budgets, two million pounds for a season doesn't seem to be that extravagant to me. Beyond the balance sheet though, Nicola made dreams come true & I find it crazy that people are so critical of a guy that delivered so much. It's unquestionable, that from a personality perspective, the man left an awful lot to be desired. But I'd rather an asshole that delivered the best football of my thirty years watching the club, than executives who are on point with PR & deliver nothing. There is an awful lot of smoke and mirrors going on about "difficult financial circumstances". We haven't gotten value in the transfer market, but when you compare the current squad value with the investment the club should be thrilled. Hofstedder (sp?) came in and betrayed his lack of experience as well as the current board position when he cast such a gloomy picture. It's always been the case that transfers are paid over four years, so any players bought would have payments outstanding. This would be the same in 100% of the clubs across the premier league. Yes it can be a problem when you've not negative equity in footballers, but to say that we've not got bang for buck is completely rollocks. If they want better returns, they are in the wrong game! We either move forward with ambition this summer, or we lose what we have. I think if we get the manager on a new contract quickly, we can make smarter moves than last summer and strengthen without paying premiums. But we've a nub of a squad, with a core of players who could play for anybody. Sort this quickly, or we'll be in a relegation battle next season.

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ClickInsect added 18:24 - Apr 11 Again I don't know why the commercial revenue of the club is being pointed out again when it was established in the last article that for the period published, our commercial deals had been signed when we were a member of the football league. The performance on the playing side has easily outstripped any chance of the commercial department keeping up. To suggest otherwise is nonsense. The amount of eyeballs watching league 1 & Championship football is negliable & the potential for brand integration is slight. Cortese was sacked because ultimately, he forgot that he was an employee. Sooner or later, behaving as he did, he was going to have to go. But as with Adkins, his performance in the role should still be celebrated no matter how pointed the briefing from the current administration gets.

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Zambucco added 22:59 - Apr 11 Our little troop considered buying an executive box, but decided against it as we wouldn't get to rub shoulders with the ex Saints, Shame! I do wonder what a different Chairman may have achieved with the finances t his disposal if Markus had lived? I don't believe that Cortese was a messiah, I believe he got lucky on a couple of occasions and it went to his head, until it finally rolled. I'm very excited about our future under KL & RK, financial stability, a club still looking to improve and push for Europe. But then again I still loved my team in League one!

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