Saints have officially announced the departure of Chairman Nicola Cortese with a short statement on the club website.
The club have broken the news with this.
Southampton FC: Appointment of Chairman
Southampton FC today announces that club owner Katharina Liebherr has taken on the role of non-executive Chairman.
This follows the resignation of Nicola Cortese.
A search has begun for a Chief Executive Officer who will take over Mr Cortese's executive duties.
Katharina Liebherr said:
"With great regret we have accepted the resignation of Mr Cortese. He has done a wonderful job at the club and we very much wanted him to stay. A search has now begun for a successor. In the meantime, it is business as usual and we will ensure that the manager, the team and all the staff at the club have all the help and support they need."
So short and sweet from the Liebherr family, in the short term it appears that Katharina Liebherr will hold the fort but in the long term a successor will follow in Cortese's footsteps.
This will actually be better in terms of Corporate Governance, Cortese like Rupert Lowe in the past was in the position of being both Chairman and Chief Executive, this meant that effectively he was responsible to himself in terms of making decisions both day to day and of a larger variety.
In corporate terms this is not seen as good practice, a Chief Executive should always report to a non executive Chairman whose job is to ensure that the CEO being a paid employee of a club is doing the job in line with the wishes of the shareholders/owners.
Clearly Katharina Liebherr wasnt happy with the set up as was apparent during the unrest last May between the pair, an uneasy truce was reached but clearly both parties were not happy, Mr Cortese did not like being answerable for his business decisions to someone and Ms Liebherr didnt seem to like the idea that the then Saints Chairman/CEO could effectively do whatever he wanted.
We will see now what the Liebherr's intentions for the club are now, its pertinent to note that all the rumblings about selling the club and players being unhappy have not been from the Liebherr's and by their actions today it is clear that whatever their intentions they intend to to the right thing for Southampton Football Club.
It will be a period of uncertainty that is for sure and how the changes are accepted by the fans will be dependant on results, ironically a year ago this week Nigel Adkins was sacked to uproar, at that point he was being feted as the best manager the club had ever had, within a couple of months many fans had changed their views and thought that he was tactically inept an unable to make the jump to the Premier, the irony is that the thoughts expressed about Cortese leaving are very similar to those when Adkins left, results drive these thoughts, Saints win the next three games and it will soon be last weeks news, Saints lose them and the Liebherrs will be under pressure.
I take no satisfaction from what has happened, I have only sadness, sadness for what could have been at Saints, it might still be, but the path at this club is never easy and those at the head have a strange habit of shooting themselves in the foot just as they appear to be at the top.