Saints Playing For Their Highest Financial Stakes Ever Wednesday, 25th Apr 2012 09:21 Saints face Coventry City at St Mary's on Saturday knowing that they will be chasing their biggest ever financial prize. If Saints win on Saturday against Coventry then the Club will see more money pore into its coffers than ever before and the difference financially between promotion and staying in the Championship is simply light years apart. Prior to the premier league the gap between the old First and second divisions financialy was negligible, it was a level playing field, meaning that clubs found their level depending on how well run they were and the size of their support etc, now a team can get lucky for a season and punch above its weight, but have to spend all its newly aquired millions doing so, resulting in major problems when it cant shift overpaid average players when relegated, Saints had this problem and the list of other is getting longer each year. Some would say our do or die game against Manchester United in 2005 had as much at stake, but they would be wrong, on this occasion there is a lot more to win and a hell of a lot more to lose, back then defeat did cost us big money but we had the parachute payments to soften the blow, this game on Saturday and the play offs should the unthinkable happen is a lot more of a winner takes all, loser takes nothing game than back in 2005. So the calculators will be out in the Saints boardroom, quite simply till the division we will be playing in is known, financial budgets cannot be drawn up, win on Saturday and multi millions will be guaranteed to flow into the club over the next few seasons, even if we were to be relegated, fail to get promotion and its back to running the club under stringent clearly defined financial constraints as most Championship clubs have to do. The realisation of these financial implicatiions perhaps points to where football has been going wrong over the past decade, the rich clubs are getting richer and the poor clubs poorer, whilst Im all for the top clubs earning the lions share, I cant help thinking that until the difference between finishing bottom of the Premier and top of the Championship is a lot lot smaller, then football as we know it does not have a lot of chance of survival in this country, yes money isnt the be all and end all and football's problems stretch far more reaching than that, but unless big changes in the way money is distributed are made then I fear for the game we all love. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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