According to media sources Katharina Liebherr is about to appoint Nicola ortese's successor to the job of running Southampton Football Club on a day to day basis.

Saints have been in limbo over the last couple of months since Cortese's shock departure, to her credit Katharina Liebherr hasn't pressed the panic button but has sat tight and looked at all her options whilst making sure that she is clearly seen at the helm of the ship herself.

According to the Telegraph's Jeremy Wilson she is about to name the new man for the position, Wilson himself being an ex Daily Echo reporter could be said to have an ear to the ground when it comes to happenings at St Mary's

The man who is set to take over responsibility for running the club is Ralph Krueger the 54 year old Canadian born German who has recently been involved with Canada's Ice Hockey team at the winter olympic's.

Although Krueger has never worked in football he is known for his business brain when involved with sports teams, he has publicly stated that he does not intend to get involved with the playing side of things, leaving that to Mauricio Pochettino but to run the club in all its departments.

This looks to be a good piece of corporate governance from Katharina Liebherr, she will presumably remain at the head of the club to oversee Krueger's running of it, but day to day it will be down to the Canadian/German to make all the decisions.

He seems to see his role as making sure all the heads of department do their job whilst he keeps the business rolling.

This is just what we didnt have under Cortese who wanted to make the decisions in each and every area of the business, this was far too hands on and meant that a series of departmental heads who previously had worked in similar positions found their position at Saints untenable within a very short period of time and left, hopefully Krueger will now bring some stability to the club and we can prosper in the areas that football fans dont really care about, but in reality are crucial if a football club is to survive.

These are the areas that brought down Cortese with the Liebherr's, whilst the fans only looked at the league positions, Katharina Liebherr was wondering why the alleged £25 million that she was having to invest in the club to upgrade the training ground, was not seeing any real progress with work on it delayed time and time again and her access to the books being blocked.

Likewise the commercial side of things why were so many highly regarded people leaving the club whilst their was no real corporate income coming in in terms of advertising and sponsorship, again not things fans care about, but if you are running a business its about utilising every income stream.

Hopefully now we will see a period of more transparency at the club, it will be run as a business and it will once again embrace the local business community who will once again pour good money into the corporate areas and advertising, money that can be re invested into the club to buy players etc.

Photo: Action Images

BoondockSaint added 13:23 - Mar 12 Very good post Nick, however I would disagree that fans don't care about corporate income, sponsorship, etc. Most fans know it's always about the money. If we want to compete with the big clubs it means we need more money from attendence, sponsorship and merchandise. It means growing the fan base. Those top teams don't tour the world in the summer to see the sights! Hopefully with the new attitude at the club this will be addressed and we can not only afford to buy good players but keep the ones we have!

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SaintNick added 13:41 - Mar 12 Im sure there are those that do realise the importance, my sentence was perhaps a little dig at those who over the last year had a pop at me every time I raised the subject and kept telling me to look at where were 3 years ago and that all that mattered was the league position
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BoondockSaint added 15:27 - Mar 12 They don't realize that in football (or any pro sport) you are in two leagues: one on the playing field and one in the boardroom.
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