Pay Up Pompey,Pompey Pay Up!

[Bob's Orange]

Agreed

Thats 2 votes for Ardiles, while we are importing football ideas for Germany, how about some safe standing and having a beer during the game !!

I would argue that the whole experience of watching football in Germany is better than England. It is cheaper in general and the atmosphere is better also.

[pauld]

And I agree too.....dangerous, all this agreeing.

I disagree

[Highland Robin]

Phew that's better

[donkey]

No, it isn't.

[Power to people]

Court case starts today......

[pauld]

Oh no it doesn't (yeah, it does, I was just enjoying yesterday's panto theme)

[thedarkprince]

Two days in court and we should learn whether football creditors gaining "preferential" status is legal and how fucked the Prem clubs are due to image rights.  Could be an interesting few days.

[pauld]

Two days in court and we should learn whether football creditors gaining "preferential" status is legal and how fucked the Prem clubs are due to image rights.  Could be an interesting few days.

It could indeed. Although HMRC's case is not just around the payment of image rights per se, but the use of claimed image rights as a means of avoiding paying tax on what is obviously salary. So, for example, it may well be quite reasonable for Man Utd to pay Wayne Rooney £1m for image rights as it's entirely possible he generates far more than that in shirt sales, merchandise etc. But Pompey paid John Utaka over £1m in image rights! Now granted it was a shockingly badly run business but even Storrie would have known they weren't going to sell £1m+'s worth of John Utaka shirts, duvets etc. So the argument is that this was not a legitimate payment of image rights but a straightforward (and pretty blatant) tax avoidance measure.

If HMRC win the day on this, it's not so much the top-end Prem clubs that will get hit, as they do have players capable of generating genuine sizable image rights payments. It's more the mid-tier and bottom end Prem clubs (and a good few Championship clubs) who've been making substantial payments to players under this supposed "loophole". To give one example, West Ham are sufficiently worried about it that they have now suspended all such payments pending clarification of the legal position

[Summerof69]

Good blog about today, with AA that he's confident of success (no change there then!!) :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/danroan/2010/08/pompey_on_the_brink.html

[pauld]

Good blog about today, with AA that he's confident of success (no change there then!!) :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/danroan/2010/08/pompey_on_the_brink.html

Quite. Why is it that the more confident Andronikou is, the more nervous everyone else gets?

[pauld]

Case adjourned already for judge to read new evidence submitted by HMRC. Expected to resume later today.

[ahounsell]

It could indeed. Although HMRC's case is not just around the payment of image rights per se, but the use of claimed image rights as a means of avoiding paying tax on what is obviously salary. So, for example, it may well be quite reasonable for Man Utd to pay Wayne Rooney £1m for image rights as it's entirely possible he generates far more than that in shirt sales, merchandise etc. But Pompey paid John Utaka over £1m in image rights! Now granted it was a shockingly badly run business but even Storrie would have known they weren't going to sell £1m+'s worth of John Utaka shirts, duvets etc. So the argument is that this was not a legitimate payment of image rights but a straightforward (and pretty blatant) tax avoidance measure.

If HMRC win the day on this, it's not so much the top-end Prem clubs that will get hit, as they do have players capable of generating genuine sizable image rights payments. It's more the mid-tier and bottom end Prem clubs (and a good few Championship clubs) who've been making substantial payments to players under this supposed "loophole". To give one example, West Ham are sufficiently worried about it that they have now suspended all such payments pending clarification of the legal position

Apparently Portsmouth were making about £7m a year from merchandising at the peak but were paying their players £45m for image rights. 

[jonny72]

Have HMRC got some new angle on the football creditors rule? The last time they went to court over it the judge wasn't interested saying something along the lines of football being able to make their own rules and that the court (or anyone else) has no say in them. I haven't seen anything to suggest it will turn out any differently this time round.

Though I'm not sure the rule actually does the game any favours and if anything only makes the financial excesses worse. If you're a player signing a contract or a club selling a player, there is no need to question the financial stability of the club you're doing the deal with as you know you will always get paid in full. Removing the safety net could help prevent clubs spending money they don't have as no one would do deals if they didn't think they would get paid.

[pauld]

Think they're looking to challenge on image rights primarily (as above) rather than football creditors wholesale.

[pauld]

Ha, like this comment from a Pompey fan on image rights:

Hope Pompey have a good image rights deal with Andrew Andronikou. His picture gets used far more than Sol's ever did.