Pre-season is less than five weeks away, yet Southend United are still unsure of their ownership or existence. Football fans worry that the Shrimpers are balancing emotions that could end almost 100 years of tradition.

This week, Dr. Dan Plumley, Principal Lecturer in Sport Finance at Sheffield Hallam University, provided unique insights to The Real EFL‘s Jake Coburn on Southend United’s current situation.

Despite contracts being exchanged in December between current owner Ron Martin and the consortium managed by Justin Rees, completion has yet to be reached, leaving supporters worried about the new season.

Dr. Plumley, like those supporters, wonders if the Shrimpers will run out of time before Martin and Southend City Council agree to due diligence on the Fossetts Farm plan, which would release the team from the 70-year-old property developer.

“Isn’t there always a risk? That happened with Southend and others. Any owner must consider a few factors if the club is not self-sufficient, which Southend is not. So then you’re into questions of how much money have individuals got?”

Having suffered from a long running transfer embargo and unpaid tax bills which resulted in a ten point deduction last season, the arrival of the consortium brought matters up to date and gave manager Kevin Maher the ability to strengthen his squad and the Shrimpers narrowly missed out on the play-off’s.

Rees and his fellow members have so far committed over £3.5 million pounds to keep the Roots Hall outfit running but concerns are now being asked how much longer they are willing to finance an operation they currently don’t own.

“How much money are people willing to put in to a) keep the club going because you’ve got to run the day to day operations still. And then b) turn it around in the long run. Now that’s not exclusive only to Southend, but if you look at their circumstances, where they’ve been and where they are now from a league point of view, clearly your revenue streams are different depending on what league you’re in and being managed that way for a number of years.”

A new transfer embargo has been enforced by the National League over non-payment of financial responsibilities leaving the club in danger of missing out on their summer targets and the Shrimpers are also due in court at the end of June, a winding up order at the request of Stewarts Law over historic debts could see the club go to the wall if either Martin nor the consortium settle in the meantime.

“I think that the risk factor increasing is the best way to look at it and those risk factors are heightened in the case of Southend. And you know the biggest question is always the what if, what if the money runs out or what if somebody is not prepared to put it in. Then you’re looking at somebody stepping in and taking over because there’s still cost to bear.”

With as yet no light at the end of the tunnel supporters will be keeping everything crossed that the takeover will eventually happen in good time before the season begins or once again the Shrimpers will begin the new campaign playing catch up.

GET MORE NEWS HERE