Rupert Lowe, Michael Wilde and Andrew Cowen offered to quit Saints – if Leon Crouch found £6m to wipe out the club’s overdraft.

The stunning revelation comes as the pressure grows on the major shareholders during a crucial month on and off the pitch.

The Daily Echo understands the offer came last Friday during a meeting requested by Crouch where the former chairman offered to put in £2m himself ... if Lowe and Wilde did the same.

The three men are the leading Southampton Leisure Holdings PLC shareholders – Wilde owns around 16 per cent, Crouch around 10 per cent and Lowe around six per cent.

Crouch’s offer also came with the condition that Jan Poortvliet was sacked and replaced by an English manager.

Lowe and Wilde are understood to have refused Crouch’s offer. But they did give him the chance to stump up all the cash himself, promising they would resign and leave him to run the club if he did.

Whether Lowe and Wilde have £2m in cash lying around to put into the club is unclear. Crouch has told the Daily Echo he certainly does not have £6m.

However, with his local business contacts including the likes of his former Saints PLC board supporter Patrick Trant, the money would have been accepted if it would have been funded by a number of sources backing Crouch.

The structure of the payments into the club would not havebeen gifts, rather interest free loans repayable on the club’s return to the Premiership.

The reason for the figure of around £6m is that it would wipe out the club’s overdraft which is the debt that is really crippling Saints.

It is that debt which incurs a high rate of interest and it is also understood Barclay’s Bank are keen to reduce the overdraft.

That potentially means Saints would be totally at their mercy as to whether they could continue as they are or have to go into administration.

It is because they have to try and reduce that overdraft that there have been talks at the very highest levels of having to sell players this month.

When contacted by the Daily Echo, Wilde confirmed the meeting had taken place but not the exact details. He said: “This is a board matter.

“We had a meeting with Leon Crouch who made a proposal. There was a discussion and our financial advisors will put our considerations to Leon in writing.

“It’s a matter between the parties and we have no intention of making it public.”

Though Crouch refused the counter offer from Lowe and Wilde it is not clear whether he could go back and change his mind if people come forward to share the cost but it seems fairly likely.

Any such deal would have to come with some kind of agreement from Lowe and Wilde that they would not use their shareholdings to oust Crouch as soon as he was back in.

But the significant thing about the counter offer is that the money will not go into the pockets of the shareholders but rather directly into the club coffers where it would have a meaningful and lasting impact.

It also means a regime change could have taken place at Saints for a fraction of the ₤15-20m that had previously been talked about for such an event to take place.