rallyboy

sos pompey should be alright to run the club. They just need to run a few bucket collections to buy off various owners. Once they have raised something like £40M at the next two home games, that will leave them secure to the end of the season. Then they just need another £20M to see them through next season and the jobs a goodun, could even be in profit by about 2015. Looks like the way forward now that Ridsdale and Storrie have committed themselves elsewhere. The only hitch might be that once they've raised £40M through jumble sales and sponsored walks, that amount of money will attract the same characters that have been there for the last ten years. Though if the tabletop sales and meat draws are that profitable they might want to abandon football and concentrate on them.

Club options and possible outcomes last summer - A. Put some money away to clear debt and prepare for CVA - maybe flirt with relegation as a result. B. Spend way too much, really badly, on players - thus nailing on further bankruptcy issues and insolvent trading, but still hoping for sympathy. We spent all our money, we don't have any now, we didn't realise that would happen, can you help?... The business plan of an idiot. Fan options last summer - A. Demand to know why the club is overspending again in a suicidal cycle of criminality under the control of dodgy owners. B. Pretend the club isn't still being used by organised crime, as the only thing that matters is what happens on the pitch. And our very occasional visitor Ho's claims that you wouldn't buy a club under the eagle eye of Lampitt and his former colleagues for money-laundering as it would be really difficult for a criminal to take control , well history shows that that little beast fell at the first. As does the claim that pompey fans have been all over the detail of this way in advance of some on here. Yeah Especially as The News is really choosy about what they feed their public when it comes to the nasty stuff about pompey - you tend to get it first on here. You cannot alter facts - the club is still being run VERY badly. That isn't the fans' fault, but the few do tend to turn a blind eye when criminality occurs, only getting involved when it leads to wins at St Marys, or Wembley - cos that makes it okay. The club image is tarnished beyond repair. Criminality has dogged it for the best part of ten years, and don't tell me it was all hunky dory and above board until the owner who was only pretending to be the owner, lost money in the market when his child-maiming goods became too expensive to sell to war-mongerers the world over. Not true - like the recent story I was told about our owners having being a vital cog in the Nazi war machine! - roll up for another Portsea pub myth lapped up by a sad little band of toothless fantasists - what a night out - some lucky heather, cheap cider and its off to the home on two wheels for some sister-fiddling into the early hours. You cannot rewrite history, pompey have had it, the real fans have given up defending club actions, they just want a club to support that they aren't ashamed to be associated with. AFC Portsmouth 2012 is the only way forward if fans want to have a shred of respect from the rest of the sport - 'the brand' has had it bigtime. Like Ho's street cred, it's over, long gone - they need to let Chanrai's little puppet circus die, and build a new clean club that runs to the rules, has a proper financial structure, and doesn't try to gain sporting advantage through criminality. That club would have my respect at whatever level they played.

big payday? The massive moneyspinning Chelsea game should be enough to cover about ten days wages! Or clear the small creditors and charities. Though I suppose that amount is a vast improvement on the expected income, just a pity that the man at the helm, AA, has his own agenda now, and it isn't PFC's best interests. His client is a man owed by Convers so he is looking to get money out of the club, not into it. Again. Can we get his autograph or are the likes of pfc and ho already in the queue? I see the few, chanting storrie's name, backslapping the ice cream vendor, flicking the Vs a local services while desperately trying to convince themselves that they have more fans, and bester than anyone else - oh, and the league have it in for them, yeah...blah, blah, big postwar crowds, deluded this, imaginary dockstrike, deluded that, blah blah, 13K of free tickets at SMS, Lambert to sign for pompey, our owner worked for the nazis, blah blah, Saints are insolvent, ding ding, yet more delusion, then another pub myth about ancient history, yawn.

sorry Euro, you did me there, I had slipped out of Sarkyboy mode for a mo! I'd just come off the main board where people were either demanding we re-introduce hoofball or slitting their wrists etc - and I'd not been up long! So it was quite plausible that someone was still convinced that we are Brazil... Was also still chuckling over pfc's claims that the bestest are the bestest, and that the facts aren't facts. The attendance debate over quality and quantity was finished long ago so I don't know why he's even continuing.

from a month ago when I was comfortably happy we could get a result down there we have managed to get into a suicidal run of form away from home that now has clear potential for a disappointing day out. The bookies will be reviewing it now. Bet your house? I really really hope you won't be spending Christmas in a cardboard box! Perhaps by then the pompey players will have sussed that they only have one payday left and some will decide they don't fancy playing. As far as the season goes it's better to have a wobble pre-transfer window than after - and West Ham must be sick. 12K? Yeah, they are the bestest and I am the deluded one.

you have to chuckle at Vince Clarke going on about 'the best fans in the country'.....he's already taken on board the quality over quantity idea. Though he may be disappointed when he looks close up at what passes for 'quality' down that way*. Or he's just offering blatant spin in the face of facts, as AA, Lampitt, Cotterill, Storrie, Grant etc etc already have. I liked that pundit quote the other night about the bestest still packing out fratton week in week out. These deluded people reckon that if they say something enough times it becomes true - it's a mental illness that should generate sympathy, so you lot should be ashamed at mocking them... *Kitson, Lawrence, Halford etc.

No proper takeover as yet, but we have overtaken. and of course AA's main task is to look after the creditors and ensure they get the best deal possible....followed by looking at how directors have acted prior to his arrival. He isn't a highly-paid puppet just smoothing the path for a loan shark to make millions. And like the rest of football I ignored his comments about points, he was just launching the new Chanrai PR campaign with a view to selling. But whatever he spins or convers up, there are some basic facts that will be hard to ignore, the missing millions throughout the Antonov empire. And of course his 'client' isn't the club owner this time, technically, it's a man trying to get money back from Convers, and £10M of that may be in the club somewhere, while AA might also have to compete in European courts with governments wanting their money back. In financial speak, tis a right old pickle that pompey are in this time.

they've dodged so many bullets I'm not convinced that the business is about to disappear, but it's different this time... Previously they were involved with people who were clever enough to disguise insolvent trading and dubious business practice aplenty. This time it looks like a blundering idiot has left a damaging trail of paperwork all the way across Europe. Annoy the HMRC and they blub and mutter - but when you start annoying European banks and governments in the middle of a recession the authorities are going to bay for blood. Whether they get any is down to lawyers, and Antonov appears to have given them plenty of evidence. Also the business is becoming less attractive with every sale, more debt, less value - and time is getting shorter. AA has his work cut out if he realistically wants to complete a sale before the next wages day - I'll stick my neck out and say that ain't gonna happen! Don't know about toast, but I wouldn't be looking to swap places with them anytime soon.

I'd have been pretty surprised if they couldn't survive the first week without mafia money, it's the pompey 2012 calendar that's going to be a thin item. But it's a pretty damning summary of their plight when the paying of wages qualifies as a news story with shock factor.

tis an indicator of how far Nigel has taken us. Three years ago we would have thrown everything at them second half and just as likely been caught on the break - 0-2. But now, it's standard practice to win home games, anything less would be considered abject failure. So turning it round like that would be exciting for most teams, but Nige has raised expectation so much, it's just what we do now, we win. Business as usual. But a great three points. And congratulations to many fans who are now realising that hoofing it means they bring it back up our end fairly sharpish.

worst bit of all? The club was claiming to be solvent until Anotonov was arrested for stealing money. This timing clearly indicates that the club has been run on stolen cash - and the league has sat there and watched. I do feel sorry for some of the fans, but not the ones who thought spending big in the summer instead of addressing debt was a good thing. Shall we pay off people who are likely to bankrupt us, or shall we buy a striker so we can beat the scummers? You make your bed, you have to lay in it. Or, if you swim with sharks, don't be surprised when you get bitten. Either way, no sympathy for anyone whose that reckless. Well done Lampitt, you have continued the fine work put in by Storrie and all owners and managers going back to and including Mandaric. Its been a real team effort, you don't create a train crash of this proportion without dedicated effort - drink a toast to quality over quantity! And nice to see some of those who loudly dismissed this thread as a haven for nutjobs and pants-wetters have waded in now with a massive U-turn and have finally learned to enjoy the comedic nature of pompey's appalling business plans. Welcome aboard, a bit late but well done.

the creditors voted yes for a deal whereby AA can name his price on the 'expenses'. As I said a million pages ago, if a big business took me for a ride and then offered me a deal like that I would have two choices. a. Accept that I've been conned and take the potential pittance over a few years like a feeble little lapdog. b. Vote against it, put them out of business, and dance on their dirty corporate grave. Other than if you are one of the few, I cannot see why any small business wouldn't go for the latter - It would be B for me every time. Then again I'm not a big fan of people stealing money off me - perhaps the creditors are more rounded citizens than I and take these things lightly. The creditors voted for a shafting and that's exactly what they are getting.

translated? It reads like a toothless rant from Paulsgrove's most educated person - big words but in an odd order. The admission that they can pay wages in the 'short to medium term' also supports the theory that new investment is required immediately to prevent a club-destroying return to administration. League rules aside, what happens to the current CVA if that happens? Does a potential new owner offer 20p in the pound of the original 20p? Antonov's problems might frighten off similar characters in future and leave them with no offers at all for a business that has no assets of note, and way too much baggage... Either way the only thing we can be certain of is that creditors are gonna get properly shafted, even if they have new members to their little group. I wonder how the taxman will respond to another flick of the V's?

so it's true what they say about Mr Panda the porn star - he just eats, shoots, and leaves? I guess the 20% CSI shareholder is busily ringing around New Jersey trying to organise the wagebill funding. Any 'banking clerical issues' with paying that and the situation would be even worse than thought, surely they must have money to cover the wages short term, even if they just pretend to dispute some.

Feel free to correct any of these guesstimates, unless of course you're clueless. The paying matchday income is only about 6,000 at an average of £20. If you add a few cup games and shop sales it gives you maybe £3.5M a year. The wages still look like £12M a year. A significant amount of the season ticket money was spent on players, the TV money and any sponsorship might cover most other overheads like the rents and utilities, travel, hotels and US holidays - and the toilet flush and guttering. The parachutes are covering the massive football debts. So even being generous that looks like a shortfall of at least £500K every month that the russians must be covering. If they consider paying the CVA, the loss would look quite ridiculous - and we are still not convinced that they have paid Chanrai yet... In simple terms the business needs to offload every high earner to break even, about six or seven of them, to be replaced by £3K a week players. To then meet the CVA and any payments to the former owner they need full houses for the rest of the season. The football authorities must be nervous now that the bank security for the owners has been exposed as fake. They are fine all the time the 'owners' cover the shortfall. Though this investment just adds to any future sale price making the business look even less attractive. Withdraw regular payments from a Lithuanian bank and the business is insolvent - dead in the water within the hour. A theory supported by the big fat bouncer in an orange suit who admitted that Convers are in financial trouble.

it's a bombshell that a senior management member should bang the nails into his own corporate coffin Phil - in fact it's Ratner-esque. Convers chancing of getting legitimate funding now that Dubov has announced that they are in big trouble? Zero. And if Convers is in big trouble today, it would confirm the concern that pompey has as suspected, been kept afloat by criminal funding. If the arrest of a man for fraud and the seizing of his criminally-obtained wealth has an immediate knock on effect for a football club, the connection is crystal clear - and damning, to the league, those that welcomed them, and to those that stood by and did nothing. Is it wrong to feel sorry for some of their fans? (Not the gobby arrogant deluded ones)

I raise my hat to the comedians who have hijacked the News site. Several of those postings were beautifully crafted, just enough spelling misteaks to be plausible, plenty of delusion to back that up. The bestest! And if Dubov is seriously referring to Convers being in big trouble then that is a proper bombshell. I'd be surprised if he can't find some dodgy funding but that doesn't sound very encouraging....

Vince Clarke! So Westwood can be played by Andy Bell...just needs a little bit more glitz in the outfit and maybe a blue and white thong. Putting the camp back in camponologist. And as an aside, that's why some people think everyone on here is a nutjob or a pants-wetter and think the thread should be closed - they don't understand half the gags, and the detailed technical research confuses them! Anyway my fellow nutjobs, pompey owner is in court later, his first step on the way to a lengthy jail sentence. And you don't get to say that everyday.

stepping back from the comedy of it all, we've been here before. The blatant criminality and insolvent trading, still unpunished. Will anything be different this time? Experience suggests not. For sure, Vlad's street cred is shot to bits unless he is cleared of all charges, and there are a lot of charges that go back a long time, so his part in this comedy may be over. That leaves the village simpleton bouncer in a suit, the Leeds man with a dodgy history, and Lampitt. They will continue to spin positivity, but I suspect the access to funds may be an issue. This would see a decline in the team, and that could be the only punishment. I'm not expecting the football authorities to suddenly do their job, or the courts to ignore the dodgy handshake that seems to have kept them afloat thus far. So it's really bad news for them, but they have had bad news before, and let's remember they are debt-free with nothing historical to bother them. The PR side? They no longer appeal to honest businessmen so damage to the brand doesn't matter. The real test is April - Saints away, and a CVA. Time to do some maths again, my recollection is they lost something like a million over six months recently and pretended they hadn't by not paying Ben Haim's wages? That said, it was enough to fool the Russians' due diligence!

Phil's right, my eyebrows were raised at the thought that a man advising the football authorities on how to stop dodgy people buying clubs was also advising dodgy people on buying clubs. In fact that was enough for me in one day, and then...the bombshell. Vlad's biggest mistake was not using Storrie's shredder and trying to stuff the evidence down the Fratton Park toilet before fixing that flush, he must have left a right old trail, I wonder where it leads. The only way it could get funnier now is if he refuses to respect the warrant and we are treated to pictures of him being bundled away like a mass murderer sometime soon. And his history would suggest he is way too important for that warrant and will ignore it. Cue re-writing of pompey management structure and future planning asap, Lampitt to spin something positive, 'Vlad was a minor part of what we are doing....with his majority stake....' I saw someone online feeling sorry for Appleton, a man who took a cut price job that no one else wanted at a club drowning under the weight of unresolved legal and financial issues. I'm not surprised, and nor should he be, the job was unwanted when Cotterill baled out. We all knew that Vlad was looking to clean money, even the thick ones on here, so we aren't being smug, it was bleeding obvious. I reckon the CVA is in proper trouble now, this must have a konck on effect for funding, time for AA to come in and delay again, followed by moaning creditors who voted for their own shafting. Tis all very predictable. But the golden moment of my day was sitting down at 6pm and listening to Fred explain how the owner of his favourite football club is as we all suspected, nothing more than a criminal on the run. We are so lucky, this thread has been so much funnier than we deserve - so a special hello to all my fellow pants-wetting, toast-mongers who are sadly still banging on about this boring situation when the thread should be closed. It still has legs, in fact it's just sprouted wings and an outboard.

did this revelation dawn on him during his journey?....................

met someone the other day who had never heard of us referred to as The Saints. He was from N.Wales though, he thought I was talking about rugby league for a bit - I think he may have been a little bit simple.

to the layman it appears that his business empire is crashing down around his ears...that might have a knock-on effect when it comes to building that shiny new stadium.....or bringing in new players.....or placating the previously toothless football authorities. If in the next few months he can't find money in other corners of his business world and misses the wages, I might just wet myself a bit! Cue Lampitt saying nothing is wrong, but with a slight twitch. Then dig out the shot of Leslie Nielson telling us there is nothing to see....

worst decision ever? Diana getting in a car with a drunk frenchman who wasn't very good at driving? Or Puncheon telling the gaffer to stick his team selection where the sun don't shine.

difficult to judge the poor bloke after just one game but....Mr Appy already has the air of a clueless bloke in way beyond his depth. He couldn't be worse than the previous appointments could he? Life can't be that funny can it?.... Do I recall promotion hopefuls Norwich going to their arch rivals and giving them the mother of all spankings last season? There's a thought.