rallyboy

could proving these misdemeanours be a problem? It looks quite simple when analysed, but is this a normal situation for an administrator or is his style of operating quite 'unique'? I would hope that he looks completely out of step with usual practice as it does seem to border on criminal/inept. I recall having concerns about Mr Fry's abilities (apologies to him, he delivered BigTime, whether by luck or whatever) but looking at AA, Fry now looks like a financial genius and Storrie has made Rupert look like a perfect gentleman who had a little hiccup and dealt with it honourably (ish).

Cotterill is the tinker man, he just can't decide which is his best line up - have they run out of squad numbers yet? And just before they claim a glorious high court victory over the taxman and lift the tranfser embargo, they have filed accounts haven't they?....That is the next requirement from the FL if you want your embargo lifted. Whoops. In technical terms they have gotten themselves into a right pickle.

nice one Hutch. I don't mind analysing the basic maths HUGE outgoings - tiny income + insolvent trading x relegation = (BIG TROUBLE x prison) but I get bored with the legal small print and leave that to the experts! Which is perhaps a lesson for AA to consider - know your limitations puppet boy, just hang on the string and dance when Chanrai slips fivers down your thong.

are they still pretending it's a tour? It's a holiday, a badly planned and ill-timed one, but it's a paid holiday for all involved. They will learn nothing from being there unless it's part of the whole image rights business, shifting Hayden Mullins shirts stateside. Soon you won't be able to go anywhere in the US without seeing a Nugent shirt.... Cotterill's time would be much better spent in the UK finding out what Chanrai's little puppet is up to behind his back. What's that Sooty? You're confident that the cva will be approved, you'll overturn the whole UK VAT system, the taxman will have to pay compensation and you can build a title-challenging squad for a new owner? I think AA can stick those ideas where Mr Corbett puts his hand.

good point that from Sid - Rocha was indeed one of the illegal signings down to the false info presented to the Prem, yet AA admits he was secured on HUGE wages? Proof that they continued to spend big money that they knew they didn't have, even though all the creditors and charities were being shafted. Insolvent trading, without a doubt - from AA's mouth. And AA is now at the poker table with James and has told the best player in their squad and England's best player in the world cup that he has 24 hours to sign or feck off - AA will then go crawling back to the released Ashdown and beg him to return. Can I play poker against AA please? For cash.

poor Steve Cotterill - took a job at a club in crisis and is now surprised to discover that he appears to be at a club in crisis. Says he's having trouble juggling the squad for games - isn't that called 'selection', one of the major tasks of a manager? He'd better get to grips with that pretty sharpish, they'll be other stuff like tactics he might be needed for as well. He can't be as funny as Grant but he's going to give us some laughs - before the inevitable departure, moaning that he was misled, and that the nasty FL and HMRC made his life misery for no reason etc. I do hope they don't break his spirit, we'd like to hear another of those Churchillian comedy routines as a farewell.

I get that principle ESB, but at the moment if clubs want to continue playing they must pay the football creditors in full. Any overturning of the FC rule would mean they have to pay everyone in equal measure - so all creditors in full. If that rule is overturned the football authorities might have to change rules and start allowing clubs to shaft each other and carry on regardless, owning players they haven't paid for, playing them against their former clubs who have been ripped off - and I can't see that happening. So a change in the football creditor rule could set the entire debt in stone. They can always pay 20p in the pound to all, they just won't be allowed to play professional football in the uk.

the really funny bit is if the taxman overturns the football creditor rule then all creditors get equal payouts. If you want the golden share you need to pay 100% to everyone so the criminal 4p a year suddenly becomes £130M in cash on the table before you can kick a ball again! HMRC winning that very winnable case would surely liquidate Pompey the same day. But AA sails on regardless spouting rubbish, pretending there isn't a herd of elephants sat in the room with him. There are 589 pages here explaining how serious their situation is but there are still many in the few who believe the hype and are looking forward to a return to the Prem. Wakey wakey!

I'm getting a bit bored with AA. First we had Storrie talking rubbish, then Grant started chipping in and it was a great comedy act. They lost it a bit when Storrie went quiet but AA really picked up the pace, he has been hilarious at times and there were few things funnier than AA and Grant doing their Pete and Dud motivational monologues. But now he seems to be out of material, it's the same tired old gags and claims, overpriced players, building a promotion team, insults to the taxman and the jokes about ignoring all the football rules, he needs a new act. Maybe Lloyd can inject some fresh laughs into this show, but AA is out of ideas - we've heard all of his one liners before. He needs to give up the comedy and start something completely different - like administrating on behalf of creditors.

that's proper tyre-kickers at work! I didn't think Nugent could become less mobile as a striker but it seems likely that he will be when they return from their holiday.

they can take the entire squad, liquidate them, convict some of tax evasion and bar others from being directors ever again.... but they will never break their spirit! One out of five isn't bad......... that's 4-1. 4-1?....Mmm, rings a bell, oh yeah, one billionaire : four crooks.

the business is terminally damaged, the fans want answers - so the players are being paid to go on an all expenses holiday in the states, AA is charging for an all expenses holiday in Greece, can we assume Storrie is being paid to be somewhere else? It's the gravy-train-crash that just keeps on giving! Why would a single fan give them money at the moment? As Blackadder once said, I would rather entrust my genitals to a madman with a pair of scissors.

Chanrai came on the scene through greed - a big loan with big interest, a chance to grab a slice of a Premier League cash cow, and he was promised the January tv money. That went pear-shaped and he was conned into further loans, all with big guarantees that haven't really happened. All his investments would be covered in the worst case scenario by the £38M squad and the parachute payments..... But the transfer income won't cover the wages, he has funded the admin but even his little puppet AA can't get the parachute money off the football creditors. Surely Chanrai must now see that there's no profit to be made in this business, and it hasn't hit rock bottom yet - more High Court action, the tax evasion cases, and that's before any irregularities pop up all over the shop. And I can see Cotterill getting them out of this division at the first attempt! As an aside, he was an idiot to take the job - see Grant's ridiculous quotes about the ignorance of any money problems... Time to cut your losses Mr Chanrai, dump AA with unpaid fees and leave him to prepare the footings for your open air leisure park incorporating social housing and a supermarket. Today could well prove to be the worst day in the 10 year history of Portsmouth FC. I see no way forward. And to sum up this historic day a guy I saw tonight had his Fratton season ticket through the post today, great timing - and he had to pay the extra postage. Really! You can't make these up.

How is AA's plan of continually flicking the Vs in the taxman's face going? He's been prodding the tiger with a stick and he's only just sussed that he's in the cage with it - it's going to be a bloodbath and it was totally avoidable. They have done everything to antagonise HMRC and other creditors, they have gambled everything at every opportunity so I do hope there is no whingeing when they lose the lot. At some point soon that 1-0 win over a bankrupt mid-table championship side might not seem worth it anymore. And as for the day at St Marys, that was a great opportunity to see an illegal side first hand and to look into the crossed-eyes of the few for the last time. Ted is properly waving now!! and let's see which simpleton posts this as hot news 12 hours after everyone else - why do people do that without reading the thread, oh well.

Yo! Get in there my son!!

I don't see how AA thinks these young overpaid hopeless cases are only be surplus to requirements now it suits. Surely they should have been first out of the door and off the wagebill when the business went into admin, or when the club so obviously breached all Prem and FA rules by trading insolvently from about October last year. If he thinks he's going to take the p-ss out of the FL by being 'clever' with the squad numbers, the goon with the frontal combover is in for a mighty big shock... Those crazy feckers at the FL will nail him to a tree, if the taxman doesn't do it first - and rightly so!

cometh the hour, cometh the taxman. AA must be wriggling on the hook tonight, and he'll never get the rest of those wiggly worms back in the can. It will take a very good administrator or a dim taxman and another lenient court to get them out of this hole. What a mess.

The taxman looks set to appeal against Pompey's Company Voluntary Agreement (CVA). The News understands Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs will lodge an appeal with the High Court on Thursday against the club's deal to offer creditors 20p in the pound. Let's all have a disco etc......

on a general note, I've been down there today and there's no doubt, it's a city for 'local people'.... I walked up North End and it was like a freak show convention was in town, odd eyes and extra thumbs all over the place. Presumably those of the few that post on here have the ability to operate keyboards so they may be the sharper tools in that box (!) but even they must admit that there are some very odd folk down that way. Fresh blood needed asap, the gene pool is too shallow, it's all going a bit Deliverance..... I finally understand why some media refer to their fans as 'special'.

as AA has made it quite clear that the americans are meeting the full cost of this tour and will want to recoup their outlay, I think they will be worried if a team of no hopers appears. That won't fill seats, in fact it will be like a home game for them! Or maybe I don't believe AA's claim about the cost of the US jolly not coming out of Pompey coffers, I would wager it's just another insult to creditors. No doubt Storrie and AA will be topping up their tans in the states, unless they need to fly to Rome or Monaco for more urgent talks...the gravy train is still a rumbling on.

so as I said then, they would need to sell Torres, and they are only looking at paying that for a player much better than Boateng - on top of that, that article is rumour-based on what Hodgson 'might do' presumably lifted from some of his tv punditry - 'what do you think of him Roy?' - 'Great player'....rumour launched. There has been no bid for anyone, Liverpool are skint. So I stand by exactly what I said, Liverpool have no budget, they need to sell first. And any Torres deal might involve him being able to walk at the medical.

Liverpool have no budget. They would have to sell Gerrard and Torres before starting to offer money like that for a world class player, let alone an overpaid thug who can't walk up the street without vandalising parked cars. That article has the correct date on it but the factual content falls away dramatically after that. Can we assume that Pompey have priced him at £4M then realised they owe £3M and expect someone else to settle their problem? Surely they have more chance of playing in the Europa League this year than getting £7M for Boateng, even Man City would consider that laughable.

so the money they've taken for Diop will now be needed to pay Belhadj for the time he's on holiday until he decides where he fancies. AA must be finding this whole running a football business malarky a bit complex, his maths is certainly suffering, it must be time for a rallying call, a big press release about 'Havant and Waterlooville couldn't break our spirit in a friendly' - or anything to distract from the fact that the ship is clearly holed beneath the waterline. This is now the least successful firesale in history and Storrie's legacy makes Peter Ridsdale look like a cautious businessman with excellent financial judgement - and some fish.

just to take an updated look at the detail of the AA plan to make the business viable - Roughly he needs to reduce the wagebill from £40M to £13M - a saving of more than half a million, a week! If he is serious that means he needs to offload everyone we have heard of. To put it into context, if he offloads Belhadj (£3.5M less fees, add ons), then Boateng and James, he will still only raise approx 20% of his wages reduction target and 35% of his transfer target, the whole first team has to go. There's no way either of his targets are possible, so there's no way he can honour the CVA - any creditor who voted for this deal because they thought it would work is an idiot. I'm guessing he's likely to fall £6M short on transfers and £1M a month short on the wages, meaning the CVA (if passed) will fail without delay and unless Chanrai wants to stump up approx £25M (leaving him owed approx £50M) to buy and run this great business model and get them to Christmas, we are back to square one.

some might observe that Chanrai has never properly owned the company. He only took control as an unpaid debt-collector but has clearly maintained ultimate control throughout the entire administration process. Maybe he missed a few episodes of his Open University course on company law.