Post by QPR Report on Feb 5, 2010 7:27:55 GMT
Hmmm! Idea!
The Times/Kevin Eason
Angry Portsmouth supporters beg for help
Five representatives of angry Portsmouth fans will walk into the Premier League’s luxurious offices in London today looking for answers as to why their club has become football’s financial basket case.
They might be better asking a Middle Eastern mystic than Richard Scudamore, the League’s chief executive, if they really want the truth.
Now under the control of a fourth owner in eight months, Portsmouth have careered from calamity to crisis and are teetering at the edge of an abyss from which there might be no return. Balram Chainrai, who has seized control from Ali al-Faraj, a Saudi businessman, in an attempt to secure £17 million he loaned the stricken club, is regarded as the only man who can steer them back to safety.
But the route is littered with obstacles, the first on Wednesday when Portsmouth face a winding up order brought by Revenue & Customs over an unpaid tax bill thought to be about £6 million. Chainrai will want to negotiate a deal quickly to stave off the order to protect the club from administration.
Fans are clinging to the logic that a man owed such a vast sum would not allow the club to fail. Chainrai, a Hong Kong-based businessman, has already issued a statement that he intends to stabilise the club and make it ready for sale — which could mean a fifth owner before the year is out.
“I’m doing this to secure the future of the club and to stop people who are recklessly trying to ruin it,” Chainrai said last night. “I’ve taken the shares from the owners and put them into trust until a new investor can come along. I’m looking to make the club into something the fans can be proud of. I want to help the supporters.”
Colin Farmery, a spokesman for the Pompey Supporters Trust, said last night: “Nobody would touch the club with a bargepole with the present lot in charge, but Mr Chainrai might be forced to get the club into a state where the finances are transparent and a proper deal can be done.”
The paperwork and courtroom battles are not over, though. Chainrai still must pass the Premier League’s newly modified and more stringent fit and proper person test, although it seems hard to believe that he will not be able to rise above the cast list of bizarre characters and clandestine dealings that have more plotlines than an episode of EastEnders.
Peter Storrie, the chief executive, is facing accusations of tax evasion; Avram Grant, the manager, is reportedly facing questions as a witness by police investigating a “massage parlour” he visited in December; Harry Redknapp, the former manager, is facing charges for tax fraud; Milan Mandaric, a former owner, is facing tax evasion charges; Daniel Azougy, a key adviser to al-Faraj, is a convicted fraudster, while al-Faraj, the billionaire saviour that never was, did not once turn up at Fratton Park to see the team he owned. And Portsmouth are bottom of the Barclays Premier League with little hope of salvation from relegation.
The Portsmouth fan contemplating yesterday writing a novel based on the club’s woes should rip up his manuscript — nobody could believe a story this far-fetched.
Yet that is only a few chapters of a compendium of cock-ups and coincidences. Portsmouth was a cash cow that kept on giving until it was drained. Mandaric is said to have walked away with £30 million when he sold one of the Premier League’s smallest clubs to Alexandre Gaydamak, a Russian-born French national, in 2006. The two were introduced by Pini Zahavi, an Israeli who has become one of football’s biggest power players as the man who brokered the marriage between Chelsea and Roman Abramovich.
Gaydamak Jr, 33, set about fighting the banks as Portsmouth’s debts piled into a mountain amid initial success on the pitch. Portsmouth won the FA Cup within two years of his takeover but with a wage bill — featuring Jermain Defoe, Peter Crouch and Glen Johnson — said to be 91 per cent of the turnover of a club who had a ground with a capacity of only 20,000, an impossible financial equation.
Enter Zahavi again. He pushed forward the name of Ali al-Faraj as a possible buyer. Gaydamak chose not to sell to al-Faraj but went first to Sulaiman al-Fahim, a businessman from Dubai, who promised to sprinkle glitter on poor, old Fratton Park.
It was all an illusion: he didn’t have the money and appeared not to know anyone who did. Forty-two days after taking over in August, he was forced to relinquish 90 per cent of the club to al-Faraj, claiming a hefty profit. Portsmouth fans hailed their new billionaire boss and prepared for the good times. But al-Faraj was such a big name, few even knew of him in Saudi Arabia, where he was said to have business and property interests. One source in the Middle East told The Times: “He was never a billionaire. Maybe a millionaire. Nobody seems to know why he became the owner.”
So there was still no cash, wages went unpaid and a legal challenge to the taxman failed. Al-Faraj needed money fast as creditors closed in — including, crucially, Chainrai, who refused to wait. His patience snapped this week as he tried to recoup some of his £17 million, seizing Portsmouth lock, stock and stadium.
The turmoil has pushed the club’s fans into protest and they demanded a meeting with Scudamore today.
"We just want some answers," Brendon Bone, of SOS Pompey, said. "That we are on our fourth owner in less than six months is ridiculous. The threat of administration is still there and nothing has really changed. We're still worried. If anything, after today's developments, the waters have been muddied even more. We just want some stability."
The sheer complexity of the club’s ownership, management and finances have proved to be beyond even the Premier League and fans are now pinning their hopes on Chainrai — in whose interests it is to avoid meltdown — being able to unravel the plot.
As Farmery put it: “It is not debt that would put off a new owner, it is the complexity of who owns Portsmouth and how. Mr Chainrai has the chance to change that and we can only hope that he does.”
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/portsmouth/article7015810.ece
The Times/Kevin Eason
Angry Portsmouth supporters beg for help
Five representatives of angry Portsmouth fans will walk into the Premier League’s luxurious offices in London today looking for answers as to why their club has become football’s financial basket case.
They might be better asking a Middle Eastern mystic than Richard Scudamore, the League’s chief executive, if they really want the truth.
Now under the control of a fourth owner in eight months, Portsmouth have careered from calamity to crisis and are teetering at the edge of an abyss from which there might be no return. Balram Chainrai, who has seized control from Ali al-Faraj, a Saudi businessman, in an attempt to secure £17 million he loaned the stricken club, is regarded as the only man who can steer them back to safety.
But the route is littered with obstacles, the first on Wednesday when Portsmouth face a winding up order brought by Revenue & Customs over an unpaid tax bill thought to be about £6 million. Chainrai will want to negotiate a deal quickly to stave off the order to protect the club from administration.
Fans are clinging to the logic that a man owed such a vast sum would not allow the club to fail. Chainrai, a Hong Kong-based businessman, has already issued a statement that he intends to stabilise the club and make it ready for sale — which could mean a fifth owner before the year is out.
“I’m doing this to secure the future of the club and to stop people who are recklessly trying to ruin it,” Chainrai said last night. “I’ve taken the shares from the owners and put them into trust until a new investor can come along. I’m looking to make the club into something the fans can be proud of. I want to help the supporters.”
Colin Farmery, a spokesman for the Pompey Supporters Trust, said last night: “Nobody would touch the club with a bargepole with the present lot in charge, but Mr Chainrai might be forced to get the club into a state where the finances are transparent and a proper deal can be done.”
The paperwork and courtroom battles are not over, though. Chainrai still must pass the Premier League’s newly modified and more stringent fit and proper person test, although it seems hard to believe that he will not be able to rise above the cast list of bizarre characters and clandestine dealings that have more plotlines than an episode of EastEnders.
Peter Storrie, the chief executive, is facing accusations of tax evasion; Avram Grant, the manager, is reportedly facing questions as a witness by police investigating a “massage parlour” he visited in December; Harry Redknapp, the former manager, is facing charges for tax fraud; Milan Mandaric, a former owner, is facing tax evasion charges; Daniel Azougy, a key adviser to al-Faraj, is a convicted fraudster, while al-Faraj, the billionaire saviour that never was, did not once turn up at Fratton Park to see the team he owned. And Portsmouth are bottom of the Barclays Premier League with little hope of salvation from relegation.
The Portsmouth fan contemplating yesterday writing a novel based on the club’s woes should rip up his manuscript — nobody could believe a story this far-fetched.
Yet that is only a few chapters of a compendium of cock-ups and coincidences. Portsmouth was a cash cow that kept on giving until it was drained. Mandaric is said to have walked away with £30 million when he sold one of the Premier League’s smallest clubs to Alexandre Gaydamak, a Russian-born French national, in 2006. The two were introduced by Pini Zahavi, an Israeli who has become one of football’s biggest power players as the man who brokered the marriage between Chelsea and Roman Abramovich.
Gaydamak Jr, 33, set about fighting the banks as Portsmouth’s debts piled into a mountain amid initial success on the pitch. Portsmouth won the FA Cup within two years of his takeover but with a wage bill — featuring Jermain Defoe, Peter Crouch and Glen Johnson — said to be 91 per cent of the turnover of a club who had a ground with a capacity of only 20,000, an impossible financial equation.
Enter Zahavi again. He pushed forward the name of Ali al-Faraj as a possible buyer. Gaydamak chose not to sell to al-Faraj but went first to Sulaiman al-Fahim, a businessman from Dubai, who promised to sprinkle glitter on poor, old Fratton Park.
It was all an illusion: he didn’t have the money and appeared not to know anyone who did. Forty-two days after taking over in August, he was forced to relinquish 90 per cent of the club to al-Faraj, claiming a hefty profit. Portsmouth fans hailed their new billionaire boss and prepared for the good times. But al-Faraj was such a big name, few even knew of him in Saudi Arabia, where he was said to have business and property interests. One source in the Middle East told The Times: “He was never a billionaire. Maybe a millionaire. Nobody seems to know why he became the owner.”
So there was still no cash, wages went unpaid and a legal challenge to the taxman failed. Al-Faraj needed money fast as creditors closed in — including, crucially, Chainrai, who refused to wait. His patience snapped this week as he tried to recoup some of his £17 million, seizing Portsmouth lock, stock and stadium.
The turmoil has pushed the club’s fans into protest and they demanded a meeting with Scudamore today.
"We just want some answers," Brendon Bone, of SOS Pompey, said. "That we are on our fourth owner in less than six months is ridiculous. The threat of administration is still there and nothing has really changed. We're still worried. If anything, after today's developments, the waters have been muddied even more. We just want some stability."
The sheer complexity of the club’s ownership, management and finances have proved to be beyond even the Premier League and fans are now pinning their hopes on Chainrai — in whose interests it is to avoid meltdown — being able to unravel the plot.
As Farmery put it: “It is not debt that would put off a new owner, it is the complexity of who owns Portsmouth and how. Mr Chainrai has the chance to change that and we can only hope that he does.”
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/portsmouth/article7015810.ece