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Saints up for sale

Southampton FC have been made available for sale less than three years after the Chinese businessman Gao Jisheng purchased a controlling stake in the club. The asking price is about £250m. Though that is reasonable for a Premier League club the economic downturn likely from coronavirus, and the fall in the oil price, may mean that purchasers will be slow to come forward.

Former owner Katharina Liebherr, who inherited the club from her father, received a similar sum for 80 per cent of Southampton's shares in August 2017.

Southampton's financial results for 2018/19 are not yet available, but are likely to be below the £28.6m profit made in the preceding financial year. The club would have made a big financial loss in 2017/18 if it had not been for the sale of Virgil van Dijk to Liverpool for £75m.

Indeed, selling players on at a profit has been part of the club's financial strategy for some time. However, the club has also made expensive signings of players who have failed to live up to their promise, some of them out on loan across Europe.

The ratio of wages to turnover last time round was 74 per cent, but this is only just above the recommended maximum of 70 per cent.

Gao's Lander Sports Development Company made a loss in 2018, leading to the sale of the majority of his stake to a state-owned asset manager.

Gao told the Financial Times that he was not treating the club as a pig to be fattened: 'I am treating it as my child … I have said to Southampton, "I am now your father. But I am putting you on the right track - you need to feed yourself."'

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