ONE of Britain’s top legal masterminds has been helping in the enormous challenge to find new investment for Saints.

Former acting chairman of the BBC Anthony Salz is a St Mary’s season ticket holder and former advisor to football board chairman Leon Crouch’s PLC directors in 2008.

He was brought in to help give financial advice to Saints following the departure of the executive directors in December 2007.

Former football board chairman Leon Crouch told the Daily Echo earlier this week that Salz had attended PLC board meetings and was proving a “big help” in getting the finances under control at St Mary’s.

The City-based lawyer admits he has been trying to find new investors for Saints, as administrator Mark Fry continues to hold talks with potential new owners.

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Salz, who works for NM Rothschild in London, has been actively involved in the past with trying to attract investment into the club.

Salz said he had no knowledge of Pinnacle and their backers or any other group currently involved in the race to buy Saints.

He said he had been talking to “a number of people interested in making an investment” but admitted getting people any further was an enormous challenge.

However, Salz said that, as a supporter, he is desperately hoping someone will take the club on soon.

“As a fan and season ticket holder, one just longs for someone to come in and buy the club and invest in the future,” he said.

Salz is not the only former high level BBC board employee who is a big Saints fan.

Gavyn Davies actually flew in from abroad back in 2006 for a meeting with Michael Wilde and other members of his regime which ousted Rupert Lowe a few weeks later.

The former chairman of the BBC – he resigned his post in early 2004 – then told the Daily Echo in a statement that he was backing Wilde.

That fuelled speculation that he would be unveiled as one of Wilde’s investors, but that never materialised.

The Echo has been told that potential investors in recent years had been put off by the fact they didn’t want to pump money into the pockets of major shareholders.

But those shareholdings have been rendered worthless by Southampton Leisure Holdings PLC’s descent into administration.

Despite that, Fry is now in his 44th day of trying to find a new owner.