stevegrant

Yeah I don't quite understand the massive fanfare over that, it's money they were entitled to anyway, being paid at exactly the time it was due to be paid along with the other 23 Championship clubs.

I did include Merthyr in my list, tbf

It's a historical thing, Wales has never had a fully professional football league of its own, and also technically Wales isn't actually a country, it's a principality. The Welsh clubs in the English pyramid (Swansea, Cardiff, Wrexham, Newport and Merthyr - I'm sure The9 will add any obvious ones I've missed ) are all full members of the FAW and affiliate members of the FA. This has made for some "interesting" disciplinary decisions over the years, because everything has been dealt with by the FAW despite them competing in English competitions. Cardiff and Swansea have both had some rather generous decisions when it comes to rescinding red cards on appeal, although I believe the FAW has handed control of that over to the FA now to prevent the very clear conflict of interests!

Only if they weren't playing in Scotland. When a new club seeks affiliation with a regional FA (and, as a result, the national FA), it has to provide details of its registered address and home ground. If both of those are in Scotland, there's no regional FA in England that would accept their application.

On a tangent, but in-keeping with the financial dealings of football clubs, here's an interesting set of questions posed by a Blackpool fan regarding the payment of ELEVEN MILLION POUNDS as a directors' salary to the club's major shareholder, Owen Oyston: http://upthepool.blogspot.com/2012/03/10-questions-that-should-be-answered.html A slightly lengthy read, but very well written.

AFC Wimbledon got about 2500 for their first Combined Counties League game (interesting fact: the first goal scored by an AFC Wimbledon player was none other than Glen Mulcaire, who is more famous for his more recent exploits as a private investigator employed by the News of the World), FC United of Manchester got about the same in the Northern League.

I give it less than 24 hours before someone on POL reads those posts and bans both of you. And you claim *they* are "fairly unintelligent"

To be honest, I'll probably avoid London Bridge until after the game. With such a big away following, the known pubs round that area will be packed. Charing Cross might be a better bet.

Birmingham's would have been higher at the start of the season, not so sure now they've moved on a load of their higher earners. Add Pompey to that list as well before they decided to stop paying the wages.

To be fair, their defence was an absolute shambles that night, and it was proven to not be a one-off for them as four days later they shipped 7 at Peterborough.

By the same criteria as they have always applied - i.e. a) does he have any past convictions for financial crimes, and b) has he been involved in two or more football club Insolvency Events - then yes, he will pass the test.

For me, that could be the defining moment of the season.

If he's not learned now, he never will

Pretty much Alternatively, you could spend £50m and probably buy us (with all the assets and infrastructure in place) debt-free. Tough choice.

All sounds feasible, but I can't see Ward coming here.

A fair point, you would certainly expect them to be able to move on some of the higher earners in the summer, even if it meant them subsidising the wages to the tune of a few thousand pounds a week. However, there's no guarantee they will be able to do that, and at this stage they have contractual obligations to pay that money so the prudent approach is to take the worst-case scenario. Their matchday income is pretty low (around £6-7m), and their broadcasting revenue's going to be reduced next season regardless of which division they're in as the new Sky deal for the Football League kicks in, which is a 25% reduction on the current deal. In the Championship, they get around £4m for this season's broadcasting rights, but next season that'll be reduced to around £3m, so another £1m that needs covering. If they go down to League One, they'd be getting about £700k, so they'd need to find another £3.3m from somewhere to cover that shortfall. Also, while most of their parachute payments since relegation will have gone to football creditors, not all of it will have done. They were due to receive £16m per year for the first two years and then £8m a year for the next two. We're in the middle of that four-year period now, so the revenue drops by another £8m, and of course we now know that they're not going to see a great deal of the money that's still outstanding there.

Liam Lawrence loaned to Cardiff until the end of the season.

Assuming Birch's comments that you'd need £11m just to satisfy next season's wage bill are correct, then automatically the answer is "no, it's not worth the cost or hassle". There are £14m of parachute payments outstanding, of which at least half are already set aside for football creditors, which only leaves (at the most) £7m to play with. If they're seriously considering chucking in £11m to get £7m out, they're in the wrong business, I suspect.

Seems that way

I can't find the article now but they changed their policy earlier this season so you couldn't buy tickets on general sale in that stand - obviously season ticket holders are already there, but any other tickets are only available to members, I think. Something along those lines anyway, but the consensus among a few Leeds fans I spoke to at the time was that it would basically ensure they'd rarely sell that end out and that the motivation behind it was so the club could identify people who were singing songs against Bates. The fact that every member of the supporters' trust board has had their account on the club's database frozen today probably backs that up: http://lufctrust.squarespace.com/blog/2012/3/2/lust-board-members-ticket-purchasing-accounts-blocked-by-lee.html

Another statement by Birch, which doesn't actually clarify anything - if anything it confuses matters even more: http://www.portsmouthfc.co.uk/LatestNews/news/Portsmouth-Football-Club-Statement-3174.aspx

Worth bearing in mind that the North Stand is "limited availability" because Leeds have brought in loads of restrictions on who can buy tickets there.

Except that land already has such a covenant. If there is no football club, the council has the option of either letting the existing stadium rot like Plough Lane in Wimbledon did for years or removing the covenant and allowing development and regeneration of the area. Tough choice.

#packthebags is probably more appropriate

I believe the (old) CVA total is around £16m. Add that to £10.8m owed to CSI, £1.6m to HMRC and around the same to staff from January's wages, Baker Tilly hold most of the aces if a CVA's going to be agreed.