stevegrant

Neil Allen ‏ @pn_neil_allen #Pompey have currently sold 13,925 tickets for what could be one of the last-ever matches at Fratton Park. #packthepark The world's best fans

Hayling Island, eh?

Nope, they've got absolutely no say in how/when the PL distributes parachute payments.

It's not up to the Football League.

Those that were immediately due at the time have been paid from previous parachute payments, but such is the nature of some transfers that many aren't due until 2-3 years down the line. The transfer fee itself is often paid in instalments, and then there are potential add-ons like a sell-on fee, extra payments if the player plays a certain number of games, scores a certain number of goals, the team wins the league, etc. It's *those* legacy commitments (or even "potential" commitments) that he's referring to there, I think.

His "love for Pompey"?! I'm intrigued as to how he expects Pompey fans to ruin Chainrai as well...

"Who the **** is laughing now?", I guess!

They wouldn't have made very much from that deal anyway, perhaps around £150k. If the club survives, that deal collapsing will probably have been a blessing in disguise.

There's no Football Creditors Rule in Scotland.

Ah, ok, I was under the impression they'd managed to negotiate a 75% deferral in order to make it through the season, otherwise I don't see where the money's coming from. I guess the article on the News site today has shown where they expected it to come from...

The wage situation is probably not an "immediate" problem because they've agreed a 75% wage deferral until the end of the season, although clearly all that does is delay the payment of wages rather than avoid them, and if the club ends up being liquidated, the players join the queue along with everyone else for a slice of the proceeds of the sale of whatever assets remain.

That's Megson's bullet-points on where they are (were) halfway through the season.

And nor, in all likelihood, will any of the other likely candidates. Terry, Ferdinand and Gerrard will all probably be too old/unfit to be relied upon by then. You could argue they already are. I don't see why the captaincy is so important anyway, no other country really gives a **** who wears an armband and gets to call heads or tails before kickoff.

The master of understatement

Lounge? Really?

I wonder where Konami got the designs for the match graphics for Pro Evolution Soccer...

Ah ok, fair enough. I had a look through the qualification procedures document on the FIFA website and it didn't mention anything about seeding. The next stage is 2 groups of 5, made up of the 5 group winners and 5 group runners-up from the current stage - not entirely sure how they'd seed that, unless it's done in points order or something like that. From there, the top 2 in each group qualify for the World Cup, with the two third-placed teams playing off for the right to enter a playoff against the winners of the Oceania group (which will almost certainly be New Zealand).

Sorry, are we in the 1950s again?

He played the last 25 minutes or so. Uzbekistan have an incredible defensive record, only one goal conceded in 8 qualifying games so far. Today's game was a dead rubber anyway, both sides had already qualified for the next stage, and there doesn't appear to be any weighting placed on winning the group as far as I can see.

Yep. I'm all in favour of ditching the FCR, but it's got to be a gradual process, I think, otherwise it'll cause absolute carnage.

If the FCR is binned, I'd like to see HMRC at least make a concession that all transfers which took place before the ruling are still subject to the old terms of the FCR, but anything from, say, this summer onwards is outside of that remit. Otherwise I can see a load of clubs going into admin in pre-pack administrations where the current owner buys them back from the administrator for a knock-down price with 80%+ of the debt wiped away. West Ham are probably the most obvious example, their debts are staggering, and Gold and Sullivan would love to just wipe most of them away, but they know that they can't do that at the moment because the vast majority of their debt is to football creditors. Many clubs sold players to the likes of West Ham, Pompey, Bournemouth, etc, safe in the knowledge that even if the club went tits-up, they'd still get their money through the FCR. If the goalposts are suddenly changed, that's a lot of clubs that could end up getting completely shafted.

It does genuinely amaze me that even journalists can't see the fundamental difference between the situation at Pompey and the situation at

You should write to them issuing them a penalty charge of 100% of the tax, plus interest, for late payment