Jan Poortvliet earned a fraction of Burley's wage

Remarkably, that was almost SEVEN times less than George Burley was being paid when he was in charge at St Mary’s prior to leaving to take up the Scotland job.

And it was FIVE times less than Nigel Pearson was brought in on following Burley’s departure.

Poortvliet, a member of the beaten Holland squad in the 1978 World Cup final, was not only willing to accept a £60,000 deal but he had to pay his own compensation to leave Dutch minor club Helmand Sports.

He paid around £30,000 to Helmand for breaking his contract with the club, though it is not known whether he was reimbursed by Saints.

Poortvliet’s salary was not only probably among the lowest paid to any professional club manager outside of the Premiership, it also meant he was being paid a lot less than his senior players.

Jason Euell was being paid more in a month than Poortvliet would have been paid a year, had the Dutchman managed to last a full year at St Mary’s.

Euell’s Saints salary, as revealed by the Daily Echo earlier this year, is £10,000 a week.

But he has also been paid £200,00 a year as a bonus for signing his two-year contract in the summer of 2007.

That works out at £720,000 a year, or around £17,000 a week.

Marek Saganowski and Wayne Thomas are both on around £8,000 a week – meaning they would earn more in two months than Poortvliet would have banked in 12.

Former football board chairman Michael Wilde has told the Echo that “coaching and management” costs had to be reduced drastically following his and Rupert Lowe’s return in May, 2008.

As a result, Poortvliet’s small salary – in line with what his predecessors were earning – was in line with the reductions needed ... otherwise Saints could have gone into admistration before last Christmas.

“Those coaching and management costs had reached 81 per cent of turnover which is unsustainable,” Wilde said. “We had to get that down double quick or face being out of business before Christmas.

“We got it down to 60 odd per cent and wanted to get it down to around 45 per cent this summer.

“With where we were at the beginning of the season, given levels the coaching staff were costing, the overall structure of the strategy was correct.”

Pearson signed a £300,000 a year deal when he arrived in mid-February 2008 with Saints nosediving down the Championship table and humiliated at lower division Bristol Rovers in the FA Cup.

DODD

That was £100,000 less than Burley was on.

But the chairman who appointed him, Leon Crouch, insists Pearson would have accepted a lower salary when the contract was due to be renegotiated last summer.

Crouch was also happy to give Pearson an initial £300,000 contract as Saints had just received £250,000 compensation from the Scottish FA for Burley’s services at a time when Saints fans were getting increasingly restless with the former Ipswich manager’s results.

Former PLC chairman Lowe told shareholders at last December’s stormy AGM at St Mary’s that “we couldn’t afford” the salary Crouch had been paying Pearson.

But according to Crouch, Pearson would have accepted a lower salary to manage Saints in 2008/09 with a bonus to be paid if the club won promotion back to the Premiership.

Other sources close to Pearson have confirmed that the former England under-21 coach was desperate to continue the job he had started.

Following Burley’s departure to Scotland towards the end of January 2008 – a move which shocked everyone at St Mary’s because the directors initially thought Burley had little chance of being chosen – John Gorman and Jason Dodd were handed the caretaker managerial positions for four league games.

Saints only picked up one point from those matches and were also dumped out of the FA Cup.

It was after that last defeat at Bristol Rovers that Crouch met Pearson the following day before announcing his appointment 24 hours later.

The chairman wanted to make a change earlier but had been told that potential investors were lining up what they believed was a successful takeover at St Mary’s.

“I was told that there was no point me appointing a manager because the new owners would come in a few weeks later and get rid of him,” said Crouch. “In my view those potential investors almost got us relegated.”

Crouch said: “Under Nigel I am convinced we would have got back up to the Premiership, not necessarily this season but within three years.

“We had a great chance under Nigel and Rupert Lowe stopped it.

“Nigel was willing to accept whatever salary the club could afford to stay on for this season with a bonus if we had won promotion to the Premiership.

“I don’t think offering Nigel £300,000 was wrong – especially as we had got £250,000 compensation from the Scottish FA for George Burley.

“Rupert Lowe phoned me up a few days after Nigel Pearson was appointed and he was not pleased.

“I told him I was not taking advice from him on appointing managers and put the phone down.”

That conversation led Crouch to think there was little chance of Pearson being kept on once he found out that Lowe was planning to return alongside Michael Wilde.

Mark Wotte has also said that he was first approached by Lowe last April – when Pearson was still in charge at the club.

Crouch undertook the interviewing of prospective managers along with football club board director Lawrie McMenemy and acting chief executive Lee Hoos.

McMenemy used his extensive list of contacts within the game to get recommendations on Pearson before the Saints board appointed him.

MCMENEMY

The trio had previously interviewed a handful of managers, some of whom were out of work at the time and some who were already employed.

Some indicated they might be interested, but only at the end of the 2007/08 season – a situation which didn’t suit Saints once results started to slide.

When Gorman and Dodd were placed in charge, none of the directors ever thought the club – then in mid-table – would be sucked into a relegation battle.

After Pearson had kept Saints up amid the euphoria of a full house at St Mary’s on the final day, Crouch had begun to plan for the future with his manager.

That was despite the fact they knew Rupert Lowe and Michael Wilde were on the verge of winning an EGM that had been called prior to the end of the season.

“I had spoken to Barclays prior to Lowe and Wilde returning,” Crouch explained. “They had agreed the three-year plan we had.

“The plan involved the release or sale or a lot of the higher wage earners last summer and again this summer.

“That would have brought the wage bill right down.

“The plan was for the manager, Nigel Pearson, to use his contacts and bring in good quality free transfers and loans.

“That is what he has done at Leicester and what he had already started on work on doing at Southampton.”

Pearson has used his contacts to take Leicester to the League One title at the first attempt this season.

He has brought in loan players from Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool to help him achieve it.

“Nigel had new players lined up to bring in,” Crouch stated.

“Nigel had the whole club united – the players liked him, the staff loved him.”

That much was true.

On his first day in charge, he insisted on being taken around St Mary’s to meet the backroom staff.

“People in the offices were totally bowled over by Nigel,” a source close to the club told the Echo.

“He made a great fuss of them.

“It was the same after he left.

“He sent some of them cards and went back to hand out boxes of chocolates.”

Crouch added: “I had the full support of Barclays Bank and I had the full support of Norwich Union.

“I had negotiated their annual payments down from £2.4m a year to £1m a year for three years.

“We had a good manager and we were getting crowds of 21,000.”

The break even figure in terms of St Mary’s attendances was around the 18,300 mark under the Crouch board of directors.

Following Lowe and Wilde’s return, the average league gate at the stadium was under 17,000.

Since they left in early Apri, the last three league games attracted crowds of over 23,000 – though admission prices were slashed for one of them.

“We would not have been in administration with Leon Crouch and Nigel Pearson – that is a fact,” stated Crouch emphatically.

“I would have supported the manager financially, you can’t escape that.

“I supported Nigel financially last year when we brought in Richard Wright and Chris Lucketti.

“Chris’ wife had just had an op and wasn’t sure whether to come to Southampton.

“I spoke to his agent and said Chris could stay in Sheffield for a few weeks and then he could come down.

“That was a deal clincher – that’s the support I was happy to give Nigel, and Lucketti did a good job for the club.”

Crouch summed up: “I still talk to Nigel regularly and he’s devastated by what’s happened at Southampton.

“He says what has happened is a disaster, it’s tragic – he’s really upset.”

Former FA chairman Keith Wiseman was acting chairman of Southampton Leisure Holdings PLC during Pearson’s time in charge.

He, too, was looking forward to a Saints future with Pearson.

“We had emerged intact with Nigel in charge,” said Wiseman, the Southampton city coroner and a Saints director from the late 1980s to 2008. “There was goodwill towards Nigel from the fans.

“I equate Nigel to Tony Pulis. He’s a scrapper and he’s got contacts.

“I don’t suppose Jan Poortvliet knew anybody in the English game.

“Why should he?”

The Daily Echo contacted Rupert Lowe to ask if he would be prepared to conduct an end of season interview, but he declined.