Pay Up Pompey,Pompey Pay Up!

[nevillew]

I'm not sure that football is ready for a 2-division demotion as a punishment yet.

Well, it was tried once before...

[Spencer_White]

It was pretty obvious they needed to sell some players on deadline day. We had a bid rejected for Ritchie. Any move to sell players outside the window is a complete non starter.

Its probably started to dawn on Pompey that the players can rip ip their contracts before the transfer window re-opens if they continue to falter on the wages. Muppets!

[jonny72]

What are the plans? Hadn't heard of this. Also, people complain enough about the 10 point penalty being unfair on fans, I'm not sure that football is ready for a 2-division demotion as a punishment yet.

I think I read about them in one of the many articles on Pompey, maybe on the BBC website. If I remember correctly they are aimed at providing an early warning for when a club is in financial difficulties - clubs have to provide financial statements and the like, if there are problems they will get a transfer ban. Something like that.

Do many fans really complain about the penalties for administration? I reckon a lot of it is just the media stirring up shit to create a story that doesn't exist. Most people are more than pissed off with the whole money situation in football and I doubt many would have a problem with clamping down on excesses.

[pauld]

Do many fans really complain about the penalties for administration? I reckon a lot of it is just the media stirring up shit to create a story that doesn't exist.

You obviously have a very short memory - most people were (rightly) outraged by the excessive penalties imposed on Bournemouth, Rotherham and especially Luton as the wrong people were being penalised - in each case, the debts forcing the clubs into admin were incurred by previous regimes who promptly fucked off and left the new incumbents to face 17-30 pt penalties. Whereas virtually no-one had any problem with the penalty imposed on Leeds (except for Leeds fans) as it was incurred by Bates' attempt to circumvent the rules for which he still hasn't been properly punished (whatever did happen to that FL inquiry into the Leeds' ownership? Bottled it? Thought so). Likewise, I don't think many people felt Southampton were unduly harshly punished. But the examples of Luton/Rotherham/Bournemouth (and we only narrowly avoided it) highlights the problem with points deductions/relegations - that they always punish the club/fans when quite often the people who have caused the problem have long since left and got off scot-free, leaving a blameless new regime to not only pick up the pieces of their catastrophic financial mismanagement but also spending an entire season fighting off almost certain relegation (and potentially many more trying to regain their League status in Luton's case). While the dickheads who caused the problem are still free to do the same at another club.

I'd be more impressed with any/all of these regulations if they showed any willingness to attempt to stop the problems before they were caused; if they showed any backbone in enforcing the regs in even slightly "difficult" cases; and if they showed any intention whatever to actually clean up the game as opposed to gashing up some hasty piece of window dressing until the clamour dies down (until the next time of course)

[reeves4england]

I'd be more impressed with any/all of these regulations if they showed any willingness to attempt to stop the problems before they were caused; if they showed any backbone in enforcing the regs in even slightly "difficult" cases; and if they showed any intention whatever to actually clean up the game as opposed to gashing up some hasty piece of window dressing until the clamour dies down (until the next time of course)

Amen brother.

[Summerof69]

Even if the shares are probably not worth the paper they are written on, a nice gesture by al Fahim :

From Sky Sports News

Sulaiman al Fahim is to stand down as non-executive chairman of Portsmouth
and will give his 10 per cent shareholding to the supporters' trust.


The Dubai businessman is one of four people to have owned the ailing
Premier League club this season, having taken over from Sacha Gaydamak last
summer before selling Pompey to Ali Al Faraj.

Despite relinquishing ownership to Al Faraj, he retained a 10 per cent
stake in the club and was also given the position of non-executive chairman at
Fratton Park.
Al Fahim revealed on Sunday that he was considering whether to resign from
that role or invest more money to aid Portsmouth's hopes of avoiding a
winding-up order.

However, Al Fahim has now decided to step down and has passed on his stake
in the division's bottom club to the Portsmouth Supporters' Trust.

Pompey could soon have a fifth owner of the campaign after chief executive
Peter Storrie revealed on Sunday evening that he is waiting to receive
proof of funds from a South African consortium.
Negotiations have reached an advanced stage, but Storrie is waiting on
proof of funds from the bank before he will give any deal the green light.
"It's a very simple, straightforward position," he told Sky Sports News.

"As far as general negotiations are concerned that's about complete. It is
now all about proof of funds. If proof of funds can come through bona-fide
banks then Balram Chainrai is in London and is prepared to push ahead and
get the deal done.
"The ball is very much in their court to show us they have the actual
funds.


"We've gone through too many things over the last year, people that have
come in who have said they have the funds to take the club forward, when
they haven't.
"This is all about proving to us, the board and the owner, that the money
is there to take the club forward.
"To be fair to them they have provided proof of funds through a lawyer,
but we need to see it from a bank. We need to see it, the Premier League need
to see it, everyone needs to see it."

[Rich Pullen]

... are they not dead yet?

Talk about slow and painful.

[jonny72]

It amazes me that there are people who (apparently) are willing to piss money away on Portsmouth. There are far better (and arguably bigger) clubs that you could take over for less money and with far more potential for getting a decent return on your money. So why do people do it?

Southampton were a bargain at £15m (which got them a debt free club including the ground fully paid off). I'd imagine Crystal Palace would be a far better option than Portsmouth, cheaper and lots of potential.

One of the comments made me laugh, they referred to Portsmouth as a Premier League club (they won't be in about 10 weeks time) with a rich history (of being shit?) and well worth saving (?).

[pauld]

Even if the shares are probably not worth the paper they are written on, a nice gesture by al Fahim

Bollocks, desparate attempt to salvage some small scrap of credibility from the complete kicking his reputation has (rightly) taken.

But one of the things I find most difficult to understand is how the fuck Storrie is STILL allowed to be involved in this mess? He's been the ever-present at ushering in (and then quickly out) the various "No, honestly, this time they really are the saviours" regimes that have fucked this club up, he was Chief Exec when they so massively overspent to get themselves in this mess, he's facing charges of tax fraud and yet not only is he still picking up over £1m quid a year to fuck up on such an epic scale, he's apparently being given free rein to explore new and ever-more inventive ways of fucking up still further. Who's he got negatives of?

[pauld]

New consortium comes forward to bid for Pompey:

[url width=466 height=262]http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/assets/images/2010/02/18/100218154754_mabhouh_passports_afp_466.jpg[/url]

Mossad denies club being bought to be used as front for "wet operations"

[nevillew]

Nah, you wouldn't get anyone turning up at Fratton park in tennis gear

[Ardiles]

When I first started going to games, we were in the same division as Portsmouth, Ipswich, Wolves, West Brom and Plymouth.  And rightly or wrongly, I still think taht we could one day rub shoulders/hold our own with those clubs again.  I know our fan base is smaller than all of those clubs...but my point is that the perceived gap between a club like ours and a club like Portsmouth is probably much larger than it is in reality.

I have no wish at all for Portsmouth fans to have their club taken from them, but have very little sympathy with the club itself.  Portsmouth FC is the footballing equivalent of the hick from Louisiana bringing home $25,000 a year who took out a sub-prime self-cert mortgage and over-extended himself.  They were living a lifestyle they could not afford, and now the chickens are back.

I doubt they will go out of business all together, but I can see a lengthy period of financial consolidation that will almost certainly result in them dropping to our division and, possibly, lower than that.

[suttonred]

Good i want to see if that smelly bell ringer still turns up at Grimsby on a cold tuesday in December, although i think i already know the answer to that.

[jayohaitchenn]

The sad twat has obviously got fuck all else to do.

[Power to people]

Pompey have now said they will go into admin on friday if a new owner is not found by then

I hear that Chainrai has sold the stadium to one of his company's and is going to lease it back over 15 years for £1m a year so he get's his money back.

Can HMRC stop them from going into admin if they have a winding up order against them ?