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Post by paddymace on Mar 1, 2012 19:10:48 GMT
Apparently...
Sort of puts our relegation twittering in context (or does it maybe?).
Horrible.
Pretty ambivalent about the team, but, no set of supporters should be put through this.
It is claimed that it's much to do with the fact that there is no way of knocking the players wages until the music stops. For the likes of me, if a company is losing money it cuts labour costs; not in football. Capitalism with protection for the workforce (that might just have something in it, if it wasn't confined to the elite 20 may super-rich squad - don't worry that can still sack the tea lady).
Let's not kid ourselves. Amit and TF may well have made us debt free (and for this I am very grateful), but, if they walk, we can't possibly be debt free for long - the balance sheet doesn't add up and won't do for at least 10 years, if ever.
Play up Pompey, the fans fraternity is with you.
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Post by Macmoish on Mar 1, 2012 19:19:53 GMT
Absolutely.. Just hope if they do go out of existence, a Portsmouth 2012 is the instant replacement. They're an integral part of Football ..."Proud Pompey"
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tom007
Dave Sexton
Posts: 1,612
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Post by tom007 on Mar 1, 2012 20:51:25 GMT
shame if it happens need pompey alive and continuing.
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Post by Macmoish on Mar 1, 2012 21:44:54 GMT
10 years ago, they had Redknapp and were signing (stealing) Crouch..
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Post by cpr on Mar 2, 2012 7:16:24 GMT
Makes no sense to me either either Paddy, how come the owner gets all the money? If it was indeed your company you would be declared bankrupt, not in football though. I feel sorry for the local businesses that have suffered whilst the club endlessly employed players on ridiculous wages, even when in administration last time!
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Post by Macmoish on Mar 2, 2012 8:10:21 GMT
A good job is to be an Administrator since YOU are always paid! GUARDIAN/David Conn Portsmouth will go bust without new funds, warns administrator • Trevor Birch says club only has enough funds to last until April • 'This could be the first big club which fails to fulfil its fixtures' Stricken Portsmouth Football club will run out of money before the end of the season and fail to fulfil their Championship fixtures if no new funds arrive, the club's administrator, Trevor Birch, has warned. In a strongly worded statement aimed partly at raising the alarm and prompting potential buyers to come forward, Birch, of accountants PKF, said Portsmouth only have money to last until April. They will not receive any further parachute payments because £2.2m due from the Premier League following the club's relegation in 2010 must be paid to the club's previous owner but five, Alexandre Gaydamak. "This could be the first big club which fails to fulfil its fixtures and has to be wound up," Birch warned. "There is not enough money, and the Premier League and Football League have confirmed no parachute payment money will come to the club. I do not have people interested in buying the club currently knocking my door down to do the deal." According to the settlement made when Portsmouth went into administration last time, only two years ago, the £2.2m was guaranteed to be paid to Gaydamak, who had paid off an overdraft of similar size which the club owed to Barclays Bank. Ashley Brown, the chairman of the Pompey Supporters Trust, said he did not understand why Birch had raised it as a major issue now, when it was known about before the club fell into administration again. Birch, however, said he has instructed lawyers to challenge Gaydamak having security for that £2.2m; Birch argues it should have been formally registered as a mortgage at Companies House. Birch also repeated his exasperation with the previous administrator, Andrew Andronikou of Hacker Young, who he said has retained £300,000 – Andronikou has said the figure is £200,000 – for his own and lawyers' fees. Andronikou has been appointed as the administrator of Portsmouth's holding company, Convers Sports Initiative, which was owned by the Russian banker Vladimir Antonov, whose arrest in Lithuania for alleged bank fraud – which he denies – has plunged Portsmouth into its latest existence-threatening crisis. Before Portsmouth's current administration, £800,000 was transferred from the club to Andronikou for safe-keeping. Then, after he was not appointed as the administrator for the club, he deducted his fees from that money. Birch said he is consulting lawyers to see whether he can reclaim it. "We will make contact with anyone we believe could be a serious bidder for the club," Birch said. "They will need to be prepared to make a major investment, because the wages of the players taken on means the club will lose between £8m and £10m next year. This is what it has come to: Portsmouth could go into liquidation." www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/mar/01/portsmouth-funds-warning-administrator
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Post by Macmoish on Mar 2, 2012 8:11:44 GMT
David Conn/The Guardian Portsmouth back on brink as extent of club's mishandling is laid bare Passed on from one owner to another, Portsmouth have run up £100m in debt without developing their infrastructure A young Portsmouth fan strikes a defiant note during a recent game at Fratton Park. Photograph: James Benwell/Action Images Portsmouth's administrator, Trevor Birch, evidently feels his gloomy message from shell-shocked Fratton Park has not been fully digested, so he decided to spell it out, alarmingly. Two years after their last existence-threatening crisis, Pompey, formed in 1898, really could go bust this time. In administration for the second time in two years following the arrest for alleged bank fraud of their most recent owner, the Russian Vladimir Antonov, Portsmouth do not have enough money to see them through until the end of the season. The portions of remaining parachute payments following the club's relegation from the Premier League, which occurred as recently as the season before last, are already spoken for; £2.2m is owed to Alexandre "Sacha" Gaydamak, a French-Israeli owner, who oversaw and for a time bankrolled massive overspending on players' transfers and wages. That brought Pompey the 2008 FA Cup, under Harry Redknapp, but then, when Gaydamak's money ran out, resulted in the first hideous administration and the club's collapse into crisis. Birch warned: "Portsmouth could be the first big club to fail to fulfil its fixtures and go into liquidation." That sparked a flurry of calls to the Football League's HQ about what happens to the Championship table if a 114-year-old football club ceases to exist, to which the answer is that its results for the season are wiped out. The Football League does not believe that will happen because it expects a buyer will come forward, a prospect the Pompey Supporters Trust is also talking up – its chairman, Ashley Brown, pointing to the long tradition and "loyal, passionate fans." Birch pointed to the legacy – or, to be precise, the lack of one – bequeathed by the years in which millions were paid in wages to Sol Campbell, Jermain Defoe, Peter Crouch, Lassana Diarra and other players the club could not afford without Gaydamak's financial backing. Fratton Park, for all the talk of grand redevelopments, has barely been touched and still seats 20,000. Pompey have no training ground and Birch said the school on whose fields the first team trains, King Edward VI in Southampton, is warning of eviction because the club cannot commit to a lease. Nor is there a youth academy – Birch said the young players turn up at Fratton Park, then are driven by minibus to sundry playing fields. "There is no infrastructure," Birch said, "but, counting this administration and the last one, there is more than £100m of debt run up. How has that happened?" The answer is the dire and dismal consequence of placing the existence of historic and passionately followed football clubs into the commitment of "owners" whose resources are uncertain. Gaydamak was only 29 when he bought Portsmouth from Milan Mandaric for around £50m, always insisting he had made his money himself, and was not using funds from his father, Arcady, who in October 2009 was prosecuted in Israel over money laundering – a charge which was reportedly dropped last month when he pleaded guilty to a lesser offence. Sacha told Portsmouth's then chief executive, Peter Storrie, in 2009 that he could no longer fund the club, and the club went on to become the first Premier League side to fall into administration. Before that, Gaydamak passed Pompey on to another owner, the Dubai-based property entrepreneur, Sulaiman al-Fahim who soon moved it on to Ali al-Faraj, a Saudi Arabian businessman who never appeared at Fratton Park. A loan was taken out with Portpin, a company owned by the Hong Kong-based businessman Balram Chainrai, who became the next owner, taking the club out of administration. Chainrai then sold in June last year to Antonov, who was introduced and represented by the serial football takeover banker, Keith Harris. Chainrai retained a secured debenture for a debt of £17m on the club itself; he also has one on Antonov's Convers Sports Initiative, which went into administration when it failed to pay him an instalment and the Russian was arrested. Antonov denies "asset stripping" at a Lithuanian bank. Thus, the 2008 FA Cup winners, who finished eighth in the billionaires' Premier League that same year under Redknapp, find themselves insolvent again, 10 points deducted in the Championship, and fighting to avoid relegation while the administrator warns they could go out of existence altogether. And with £2.2m still owed to Gaydamak, the last owner but five. www.guardian.co.uk/football/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2012/mar/01/portsmouth-back-on-brink
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Post by cpr on Mar 2, 2012 8:22:20 GMT
Why has the previous administrator taken so much dosh? Is it because he did such a good job last time, only two years ago, that they are "sailing in safe waters" now? I think not.
How come Gaydamak didn't get 10p on the pound during the previous administration, just like every other person owed money? Local companies have gone bust due to their continual mismanagement and literally taking the piss, as well as the money, out of the club and football.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2012 10:26:24 GMT
Maybe the thread could be changed to what name do we think they will come back as
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Post by Macmoish on Mar 2, 2012 10:39:02 GMT
AFC Portsmouth
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2012 10:44:30 GMT
Pompey FC
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Post by terryb on Mar 2, 2012 18:00:28 GMT
Portsmouth are not a club I have ever liked & back in the 60's-70's you felt that you were risking your health going to Fratton Park.
However, I really do feel for their supporters. They have been made to go to hell & back in the last few years & have been betrayed by all owners & quite possibly managers.
I hope that they have plans in place to restart as a new club & it will be very interesting to see what level the FA allowed them to start at. It should be the Wessex or Combined Counties League (as Aldfershot & Wimbledon did) but I have a feeling that they could be placed a lot closer to the Conference.
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Post by cpr on Mar 2, 2012 22:24:36 GMT
Pompey Southern Counties Utmost Mingers FC.
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Post by harlowranger on Mar 2, 2012 22:47:17 GMT
Portsmouth must cut players' wages by £10m Portsmouth will need to slash nearly £10m off the wage bill this summer even if new money is found to keep the club alive this season. Captain Liam Lawrence was loaned out to Cardiff yesterday to cut costs at the Championship club. But Pompey, who host Middlesbrough today, are still carrying an unsustainable wage bill which could scare off any potential white knight investors. “The clubs needs to get down the costs of player contracts over the summer,” warned administrator Trevor Birch. “The current costs are £14.5m - that needs to go down to £5m. But now we simply don’t have the cash. Unless I get funding from somewhere else, we won’t get through to the end of April.” Portsmouth owe £47m in current debt - £17m in secured debts to former owner Balram Chainrai and £30m in unsecured debt. Scott McLachlan of the Pompey Supporters; Trust said: “To have a wage bill at that level is jaw-dropping and I have no idea what the people in charge were doing. Whoever comes in will have to take control of the situation because it is untenable.” www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Portsmouth-must-reduce-players-wage-bill-by-10million-article873386.html
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