Jan Poortvliet will learn how much he will have to pay Helmond Sports tomorrow night.
The KNVB or in English the Dutch FA, are to hold an arbitration hearing in which they are expected to agree that Poortvliet's move to Saints is an improvement both financially and in terms of his career and will therefore release him from his contract at Helmond.
Having done that their second task will be to set the level of compensation that will need to be paid to Helmond, the good news is that this cant be more than the salary of the one year he has left on his contract, the bad news is that there is no right of appeal.
WE now get down to the crux of the reason that Helmond havent played ball with Saints and backtracked on their original stance of releasing Poortvliet, they will be confident that the KNVB having ruled that its a career step forward, will agree a full years salary of compensation.
Of course in the current cclimate at Saints, many fans held this situation up as another cock up by the Club, the truth is that this situation is a normal occurrrence and over the years Saints have been both the victim in the case of Hoddle, and the guilty party, as when they lured Paul Sturrock to Plymouth, those that shouted that it was madness appointing a man who couldnt take over the club or sign players etc, have had to keep quiet as Poortvliet took the first days training and has clearly been active at Saints in the past few weeks..
The only mystery surrounding the situation is just who will pay the compensaation, of course Poortvliet has been famously quoted as saying that he is paying it himself, in truth this is probably more a PR exercise to placate Saints supporters, the truth is that Saints would have factored the fact that they will have to pay something to Helmond for Poortvliet, indeed like Helmond they are hoping that the tribunal rules in their favour with a lesser pay off than a full years salary.