January 2010 - myPompey News

Yet another creditor has joined the long list of companies suing PFC for outstanding debts. This time it's Grosvenor Basingstoke Properties Ltd which is ganging up with HMRC in an attempt to get the club wound up.

This coincides with Pompey's website going down due to more unpaid invoices, although unlike the other actions that continue unabated, the website was reinstated after a few hours of down time after yet more promises of payment.

And now tonight we have learned that both Peter Storrie and Avram Grant were both unaware that an unnamed 3^rd party at the Club was in negotiations with Spurs about the transfer of Younes Kaboul. Yep, you've got it, that man Redknapp is probably going to get his Wii mits on another of our players in circumstances just as tacky as those that accompanied the Defoe, Crouch and Kranjcar transfers. At least this time though, it's not just the fans that are being left out in the cold, add Storrie to that list too.

Storrie apparently has suggested that his position is becoming untenable. Why is that Peter? Something to do with not getting your extortionate wages paid on time, or maybe it's because you know how it feels to be treated like the Pompey fan you claim to be.

Whilst on the subject of Peter Storrie, I have this week written to him twice offering to write his biography for him. Seriously, why not? If any man knows the true story behind PFC then it's the man that now sits in the Directors box at matches with a face longer than Jacobs list of excuses.

And the mind boggles as to what we might call the biography - answers in the comments section please...

Money spinning biographies apart, the situation at Pompey is clearly deteriorating. With each mini triumph comes another major setback and you have to wonder how long the Club can keep its head above water.

As if fighting relegation on the field isn't bad enough, we are now fighting relegation off it too. What seemed early season as likely to be a death from a thousand cuts, has turned into a full on wet kiss with a tank of hungry piranhas.  You just know it's going to get nasty and the only question now is whether to keep your eyes and ears glued to the latest events, or to turn away and look back when it's all over.

But, despite all the doom and gloom we are not down and out and as one hardy PFC exec reminded me the other day, there's still, despite appearances to the contrary, plenty of fight left in the Club yet.

Yes, we may well have multiple creditors trying to dissolve the business, but at the end of the day it's only money and compared to the debts at United and Liverpool, it's actually pretty modest.  It's just a shame then that I, the eternal sub-optimist, am not being taken in by my own words. I don't know what you think, but perhaps it's something to do with the Club being run by faceless, near skint owners on the one hand and a comedian laywer on the other.

Hale the Fans

Yes, the game needs more money - then I can get a bigger bonus.

Of course the wise men at the Prem will make much of their stand against Pompey's recent profligacy and there's no doubt that they approached this task with considerably more venom than they did the Fit and Proper Person's test. But you can't help thinking they got things back to front.

Even at its simplest level, ensuring owners can fund basic club activities has to be a priority even for the Ivory Tower dwellers that want all the power but none of the work. Had the Prem looked at the cause of the recent payment defaults, salaries included, then they may well have learned something. Instead they seem content on red carding Pompey after the event rather than preventing an 'illegible player' from taking to the pitch in the first place.

And now the embargo has finally lifted, and you have to question the choice of words, Pompey it seems are free to return to the market and in doing so will attempt to 'strengthen the squad', as Jacob put it. Quite where the money will come from, when we appear to be selling players in more undisclosed (read embarrassing) deals, is subject to much discussion.

Time will tell and Avram Grant will be hard pushed to bring in anybody of note unless the rumoured recent takeover number 3 can be completed in the space of a few days. I doubt it.

Back at the Prem the faceless execs who brazenly run this league, despite their claims that it's a 20 Club quorum, will be thanking their lucky stars that this episode is over, for now.  The fact is had they continued with the sanctions, the ramifications going forward for every club would have been severe.

It's one thing to see Pompey go bust because of market conditions, but quite another to condemn over-spending when the Prem themselves rubber stamp each and every transfer. You have to question whether the Prem's actions were legal at all in terms of constraint of trade, but had they sunk Pompey with their bullying, they would in future be obliged to look in detail at every transfer and the effects it has on the finances of the clubs involved.

To not take such action would make them part of the problem, which of course they already are, but as it is, by releasing Pompey from their shackles they can now return to the argument, which was echoed recently by Gordon Brown, that it is the clubs' responsibilities to look after their finances and not the authorities that demonstrably dilly dally on the sidelines. The fact that two inept 'authorties' wheel out the same argument is really all you need to know when assessing its appropriateness.

We haven't heard the last of this. The next club to get into trouble will stretch the current regulatory system to breaking point and I'd wager before the champagne has stopped flowing at Pompey's numerous agents, that the Prem will be spending serious money on yet more lawyers. But this time not to beat up defenceless, penniless clubs, but to ensure, when the inevitable happens, that they remain untouchable.