rallyboy

Rangers offering Pompey money for Smith?? Two penniless tramps fighting over a sock.

Perhaps AA had forgotten to include the £48M income in his CVA calculations, he will be pleased HMRC has corrected him and allowed him to improve the deal for the creditors he is so obviously working for. I'm sure the Prem can easily find a loophole for controlling the distribution of the parachute payments if they feel the club owners are likely to trouser it. And just to cheer them up further I guess lovely uncle Avram will now start to rip the remaining heart out of their feeble squad in the style of Redknapp and take the last assets to West Ham - even though he loves the fans and their spirit will never be broken! What a legend.

unlike the harbour stadium this is a development. If HMRC overturns this then there could be no debt written off - the football debts have to be paid for them to compete, wouldn't all other debts have to then be paid at the same rate - 100%? Even if the real debt is £100M the figures are nowhere near adding up, Chanrai is firing up his Hertz Focus just at the thought of it, and the creditors must now be planning to wait before approving any CVA. A victory for HMRC would surely leave this blatantly insolvent business dead in the water?....

Palace went into admin and soon found themselves on the brink, they have made real redundancies, were forced to sell and they still cannot pay the wages - they now have 24 hours to save the club. This has been the brutal scenario for every single club that has suffered this fate, apart from one.... Pompey are happily chugging along through an ocean of debt like a company without a care in the world, planning transfers, drawing up a shortlist of managers, booking US pre-season tours. Yet Palace with a much smaller debt can't plan beyond tomorrow teatime. It's about time Pompey went into 'genuine administration' with an independent administrator who could finally made some sort of effort to address the debt. In six months I have seen nothing to suggest that they intend to pay anyone, anything. No player sales of any significance, increased wages, no debt clearance, no deal agreed with the taxman, just blatant insolvent trading. for the 1,375th time we ask - how long can the authorities let this charade continue?

the FL haven't even taken them under their wing yet so we have no idea what they have in store. But I would wager it won't be as generous as the Prem. Let's wait a few days and see how their new league welcomes them......

sorry Nick I disagree about the strength of their squad. You think of the quality we had when we dropped out of the Prem, far too good to go down (!) and certainly good enough to bounce straight back....(!!!) Most of their players will depart and even the old donkeys on big money may find the paycut too much to take. Without investment their squad will lack quality (I don't see that happening) and we know that the CCC may look weak on paper but come 3pm it's a jungle where the weak get savaged. They will be a scared little victim and even the likes of Millwall, S****horpe and Doncaster will be keen to get at them. I see no investment, no fairytale, no full houses, no glorious return.

But if the club is promoted back to the Premier League within the next five years, the creditors will get a boost of an extra five pence in the pound Well that makes all the difference! Local businesses are going to be shafted but if Pompey win the lottery they might give them a fiver! If a company did that to me I would happily write off the pittance on offer, vote against it and dance on their corporate grave.

Let's not forget that we're still only getting AA's version of events and he's the only one telling us how everyone loves his CVA plan and that Operation Liquidation is foolproof. The taxman has historically declined far more than 20p in the pound, I don't see that he'll accept less now, and there's no way I see the authorities accepting AA's progression from administrator to liquidator - at the helm of the fraud investigation into his own client?... Chasing dodgy directors just isn't worth cash to HMRC, Storrie won't be coughing up £20M on his way to Ford. Their best chance of maximum revenue is from the club, with their current claim. I'd be surprised if they don't continue to chase the lot.

bloody hell Phil, I thought you'd slipped through onto the dark side for a moment there. I still see their financial planning as built on sand, with further charges to come.

and AA seems convinced that the club will now be self-funding. On 10,000 gates and a £10K a week wage cap, with Storrie back in doing the accounts. So he doesn't need a new owner or further investment, the glory days are around the corner!

anyone who wasn't moved by Matt's goal against Arsenal at The Dell has the emotional detachment of a serial killer and should seek immediate counselling. I think we've established since that the whole ground was choking back a tear and covering it up by putting on sunglasses or coughing in a manly way. Relegation is a slow and predictable process and for me is less sad than leaving a ground which holds so many memories - it's saying goodbye to decades of your life and to many people, and Matt provided the perfect farewell moment.

I've wasted 332 posts of my life on this thread, and to think I was going for quality over quantity...and now some geek will tell me that 90% of my total posts are on here. Maybe I would rather do gags about Pompey's appalling mismanagement and their staff's massage habits than discuss whether some bloke in the pub says that our season ticket prices are going up/down/staying the same.

Storrie didn't bother to include the small matter of wages into his calculations. The sums are quite simple Buy five players, make huge profit on one, break even on two, lose money on two = no money lost overall, and let's not forget the bonus opportunity to deal personally with the agents.... The transfer deals look okay when you don't take into account agent fees and wages, and there were so many deals it's as if someone was getting paid just for signing players. Even since January I would estimate that the handful of additions to the squad have cost the administrator/club over £5M in 'fees', wages, contract buy outs and little extras, more than sensibly-run competing club's budgets. That was not 'poor plucky Pompey' making it to Wembley, that was a club still paying over the odds for average players to strengthen their squad whilst trading insolvently. Paying ludicrous wages that the club can't afford is clearly cheating. When Crouch was lured from Champion's League football with his wages doubled the alarm bells should have been a ringing. When Arsenal couldn't match Diarra's wage demands but Pompey could, it was obvious what was going wrong, and the debts just kept climbing. And when they lost their main source of grubby money did they slow the spending? No, they changed up into fifth and drove the bus over the cliff. Now they seem surprised to find themselves on the rocks - then again who could have predicted the situation we now see. (other than about 1,000 people on here, or a six year old with a basic grasp of numbers)

so AA's not sure if James is ready for management then... Is David James impressed to hear a crap bean-counter announcing his opinion on an international footballer's credentials?? In defence of the one worthy human being on their books one might observe that he could fairly respond - 'stick to book-cooking and thieving you crook, stick your football opinions where the sun don't shine!' The administrator is meant to be sorting the business for creditors not posing about in the papers and signing autographs, methinks he's enjoying the glamour and the bright lights of downtown Fratton too much.

just curious, how are they financing the business at the moment? is someone slipping parachute payments under the counter or is Chanrai pouring his children's inheritance down a black hole? There's a lot of wages that need to be paid before they see any income and every other club that has gone into admin has struggled from week to week. They seem to be carrying on regardless - so as Dinenage would say, how?

The FA is waiting patiently and has made noises before about the club not being under their jurisdiction until June 3rd - I think we will see fireworks after that, or at least the toaster coming out of it's box. And I don't see why the taxman would write off chasing the £35M to try and get something out of the likes of Storrie, their main target must still be the business itself. So that little light at the end of their tunnel is in fact the taxman and the FA adjusting the sights on a Gaydamak autograph edition rocket launcher.

a dreamer with no cash waiting on a fantasist making it up as he goes. Not exactly a heavyweight battle of wills, or the potential for a happy ending. Less like Pinnacle, more Laurel and Hardy.

simply the gamble would not be for the faint-hearted, the overheads and running costs are still too much. An immediate return could cover costs after a couple of years without further penalties but as we have said since the start, there are far more attractive propositions available. Chanrai has put himself in pole position in the worst Grand Prix in history, he could do something with the ground if the whole football club thang fell apart and get some money, but a new owner would have to be insane to put in the investment required with a slim chance of returns on it. Better investments at the moment would include clubs like Leeds, even Millwall if they make it up - that's how far Pompey's stock has fallen. The cold reality is ignored by fans who just look at what happens on the pitch, as a post-admin club we know better than that these days - we look at the small print like balance sheets etc! Forget all the spin and the hype and the bravado from the few, after 524 pages they have still failed to find the one thing they need, a buyer. Hard cash is still the only answer to their situation and without it there will be no return.

so AA is kindly telling West Ham that he won't demand compensation (as legally he can't) and he's wasting most of his time on a Europa application that is two months late, won't even be looked at, and they don't meet any of the criteria. As an administrator, why doesn't he try some administrating? Even one day a week might help. Or is he still sulking because he wanted to be mascot at Wembley? Methinks he's a little bit simple.

if for the first time they're realistic about trying to address the finances they need to lose everyone and start again. Even the poorest performing players on that list must be on over-inflated wages as it was the Storrie way. Either they clear out and concentrate on getting the finances back on track (using the sexy total football path) or they continue the madness until the taxman shuts the ground forever. The shrewd plan would be to finish one place above relegation with a lean and restructured club that's heading towards self-financing. Their crushing new £10K wagecap must be similar to Burnley's standard trading idea when they were solvent and in the Prem, AA hasn't suggested a revolutionary new moneysaver, it's a bit steep for a crippled championship club on low gates. If they retain anyone on stupid money they need a rich new owner, and they don't have one, so it's a simple decision. Based on recent history - the chances of them doing the sensible and honest thing? Zero.

they seem to have broken his spirit rather quickly despite his Martin Luther King/Winston Churchill moment. 'I'm off' could be the first sensible thing he's said for six months, first task will be to try and explain to the West Ham fans why he doesn't rate them as highly as the few, and why his recent league record is by far inferior to Zola's and if repeated would lead to relegation in February. Is his statue going next to Harry's or Storrie's? Avram will be happy, the fans say they will 'love him long time' and he likes that sort of thing.

yes he was technically playing for West Ham, but Harry was slipping him a few quid as part of the deal that took Begovic to Stoke and saw Higgins lose to Steve Davis, a knock on from the day that Segers dived over three Everton shots in fifteen minutes and Matt kicked it out for a throw from the kick off - all above board.

I think we 've established that it wouldn't have made the top five of great underdog victories had they won - and they didn't, so it doesn't matter! Any news yet on pervy Grant's appeal against the free kick? It was a plot by the FA and the Premier League to break their spirit, but they never will, oh no, passion, best fans, blah, blah, blah........idiot. I wonder what the likes of Barcelona and the Milans make of it when they see a big Carling Cup night at Fratton Park on the telly and the ludicrous claim to be the best supporters in the world/europe, (depending on which delusional clown is spouting it), ditto Liverpool on a big european night. When the kop chanted 'justice for the 96' for six minutes I recall them muttering in scouse afterwards about how they envied the passion of the blue few and wished they could compete with them. Then again Liverpool would have sold all of their seats for a cup final so it's swings and roundabouts. Storrie back at the helm, criminal activity unchecked, firesale imminent, it's just like the old days!

just tell them pompey had a clear decision to make in January - pay the children's cancer charity and creditors or 'buy in' players to strengthen the cup run. They made NO attempt to sell, they just carried on spending money they didn't have. Also point out to them that the player's wages were paid by them and taxpayers everywhere, and that the money meant for hospitals and schools that pompey kept is now being offered back at 4p in the pound for the next five years. If they still don't get it just remind them that we were never owned by arms dealers responsible for crippling children, money launderers, convicted fraudsters or tax evaders. If they still don't get it, stop going to parties with these people.

I thought it was a nice touch for Boateng to mark the anniversary weekend of the Dam Busters by being the first player to hit a Wembley penalty that actually bounced a few times before it made it to the goal. If only he'd been that gentle when assaulting Ballack late and from behind, the german might be taking part in the World Cup and not watching it from a hospital bed. I guess we should thank the convicted criminal for both of those courageous feats. Go have some drinks on us Princey, rip a few car mirrors off, go crazy, smash some windscreens, you know you want to, for your feeble spot kick you'll always be a hero in the red two thirds of Hampshire.