MYSTERY surrounds speculation that Saints legend Matt Le Tissier is fronting up a consortium of property developers who are in the running to buy the club.

According to reports yesterday, Le Tissier had confirmed that the group had even already completed the due diligence process with a view to potentially making an offer for the club.

When asked about the rumours, Southampton Leisure Holdings administrator Mark Fry, who is trying to find a buyer to save Saints from extinction, told the Daily Echo he has not held any direct discussions with Le Tissier.

That, though, does not rule out the possibility that one of the potential buyers does not have plans to involve club legend Le Tissier in some way.

That would be an idea almost certain to be hugely popular with Saints fans.

Fry, right, said: “I can’t shed any light on that. I am not at liberty to say.

“All I can say is I have not had any discussions with Matt Le Tissier.”

Fry added that he is in negotiations with no more than three potential investors.

He hoped those talks would come to a successful conclusion “within the next week to ten days.”

“Generally we are in negotiations with a number of potential buyers,” he said.

“It is a ‘number of’ – there is not more than three.”

“And we are hoping that one of those will be picked within the next week to ten days.

“Hopefully we would like it to be sooner.

Guernsey duo Ben Steele and Quentin Hubbard emerged last week as potentially being among the contenders to purchase the club.

The Channel Islands pairing were the first party thought to be interested in snapping up Saints whose identities came out in the public domain.

Steele and Hubbard held talks with Southampton Leisure Holdings administrator Mark Fry at St Mary’s on Tuesday before flying back to Guernsey from Southampton airport the following morning.

They are understood to be wanting a straight cash purchase of the club and were not interested in going through the full due diligence process.

As a result, it has led insiders to question exactly how serious they are about the potential purchase with others having taken a much more thorough approach including due diligence.