rallyboy

interesting confirmation from the council statement is that as suspected there is nothing left to secure loans against. This suggests that all of the club's current assets are now at the mercy of creditors. No more loans, no more significant income - I can't see how they will still be trading in 4-6 weeks, even with our generous fa cup fundraiser. (then again I can't believe they are still technically a going concern today!)

the natural thought is, someone will invest last minute and they will be saved, something will come up.... But let's look at the facts, we are in a new era of banking discipline and impatient taxmen - they need a new owner who is happy to risk maybe £150M on turning the club round, a man who doesn't want to buy Newcastle cheaper, and ideally they need him to complete in the next seven days! They have been hunting this madman for a year without success, people that rich don't get that rich by risking huge sums on lunatic schemes. A business proposition like that is only useful if you want to launder huge amounts of dirty money but the authorities are all over this club now, it so obviously isn't a real business anymore. And if it comes to post-admin - the complex web of debt, loans, and vague ownership, along with the asset-stripped structure are likely to leave a club without a cva or a ground, heavily penalised, and not worth even a cheap punt. The blue few paradise scenario of a fresh new vibrant club created the next day free of debt, is like most of what we have heard from the Fratton management clowns in the last six months, fantasy. Nothing has changed in six months - spin and rumour hasn't cleared a single debt. Cash was the only answer, and they still need lots of it, and now. And for the odd sensible Pompey poster on here, yes we would enjoy the highs as you did, but if Pardew had just put in an offer of £10M for a player I think most on here would be quietly horrified unless our owner announced he had put aside huge money and a longterm budget to move the club forward. As post-apocalypse fans I think we are more aware of wages and fees and I would rather lose some games than see our management team gamble the future of the club on some short term dreaming. Don't get me wrong, I won't be demanding that we buy poor players and pay low wages but it all needs to be sustainable and thankfully that appears to be the way we are operating. Meanwhile, as Pompey have refused to address their debts and made no effort to offload players they cannot afford to pay, we will be facing a team in the fa cup that has been criminally-assembled by a club that is clearly trading illegally, and as such brings the game into disrepute.

I thought it was bad that a company with a £75M turnover couldn't pay the £2M wages, I then thought it was ludicrous they couldn't pay the web company £2000. We now know they couldn't pay the match announcer £60, but tonight I have been told of a bloke who sold them goods for £35 and they didn't have enough to pay him! Any advance on the cost of one match ticket? Have we found the creditor on the end of the very long queue, or have they shafted someone for even less?... Meanwhile the loanee wages keep stacking up. They have given up on paying debts, it's just blatant theft now.

In the next 110mins they need to raise £25M. I don't think they are serious about selling players today to cover debt, the creditors must wonder why little is happening when they should be offloading 7/8 players for the wages at least. Are they hoping it all just goes away and they win a few games by retaining most of their illegally-assembled squad? It's a suicidal strategy in the last chance saloon - the taxman won't blink first and will nail them to a tree. And on the upcoming milestone for the thread, the peleton should wave the thread-starter to the front - so I await a historic and poetic post that may even inspire the book title when it is published.....

I hope their new signings like Pot Noodle and crisps, you can get them in bulk from the Eastleigh CashNCarry. Anyone at Fratton asked why they can afford to do lots of expensive things but paying ordinary people and local businesses seems beyond them?... The club's reputation is shot to bits, they look like a dirty club run by crooks. (in case anyone hadn't noticed!)

I thought the parachute payments were something like £9M x2? Either way, this future TV money and the ground are already security for existing loans? They can't pay £60 but they are still trading - WAKEY WAKEY PREMIER LEAGUE!!!! It's over, they have technically been in admin for four months but no one will admit it. But on a personal note, the longer they hang on the better, the debt is rising, the recovery less likely, but the slowest train crash in financal history cannot survive the upcoming court appearance, can it?

generally speaking, Prem footballers are simpletons who covet shiny tat - I can only assume their brains work in different ways to 'normal' people. There are exceptions, but there does seem to be a pattern of cheap neck tattooes, thick and easily-impressed women, cars they can't handle, oversized hats, poor judgement on drinking, appalling judgement on relationships and an inability to construct sentences. Chuck in £100K a week and we have created monsters. If Terry delivers on the pitch and behaves off it we will be fine, but as Cole discovered, your supporters will accept you when you are peforming but boy will they turn on you the first time you fail. So, chavvy scum! - with apologies to the 10% - meaning the likes of David James if we put rivalries aside, Ryan Giggs, and anyone else who managed to complete secondary school. And putting aside Ferguson's many obvious character defects, he has a good record with discipline and keeping players feet on the ground, as a pensioner he must look at the likes of Terry and want to give him national service.

Maradona is going to go ape when he sees a convicted fraudster dismantling his squad, though of course it's just paving the way to bring in all those Galacticos. Man City v Pompey at the weekend is set to be the first of many battles between the two newest richest clubs in Europe, as Utd fade, Pompey will take their place, and no doubt billionaire mover and shaker Al Fahim will be selling ice creams in the front row again. Any news on 2018 world cup final tickets in the harbour stadium yet, I tried to look on their website but there were obviously too many people trying to buy champions league hospitality or U2 tickets.

Grosvenor is an international property development company - so what interest do they have?... Wild Guess no.226. if the arms dealer has in some way used them as a vehicle or agent to look after his land - it's all over for the blue few. It would mean the £9M has just gone on the winding up order and needs settling now. Also the Prem can clearly see that the club is now being run by people as shadow directors, a clear breach of league rules. Get the ref to stop it, they have taken too much punishment, stop the fight, get the administrator in.

Mr Fry, cancel all holiday and fire up the Bentley! There's a gargling fat lass riding south with the other three horseman of the apocaplypse and they are Fratton bound. On second thoughts, forget cancelling the holiday, you will need about an hour to establish that there's nothing left to sell.

putting aside any mischievous rumours it does seem that a few local companies have had enough and withdrawn their 'support', as well as their stuff! And if a company with a turnover in excess of £75Million can't find a couple of hundred quid for a local business then the end must be nigh. Correct me if I'm wrong but historically EVERY other club with serious money issues has gone into admin before reaching this sort of level. Palace, Notts County and Bournemouth haven't slumped this low yet. They are trying to take on additional wages with loanees - £10K,£20K a week? Yet they can't pay their local suppliers a few quid? Criminal, despicable, unethical = bringing the game and the league into disrepute. Surely the Prem are sat poised for another missed wages day and then they will act?! They accepted promises this week about the ability of the club to fund the future, if that proves incorrect immediately, they must sort it out.

be afraid of the 757 crew - they are just as hard but they don't like missing breakfast. That aside, anyone coughed up the £10M they need yet? I hear lots of spin but I haven't seen any actual.....how can I put it....cash....

That's them all sorted then, time to close this thread, it's been fun, we must all meet up again in ten years and relive the hilarity. But just before the mods lock it all down and put the cat out, there was another little niggling query....now what was it?....oh yes, do they have the £15M required to continue trading beyond this weekend yet?....

Gaddafi may struggle to raise the cash since his main investor was executed yesterday for genocide, he'll have to go back to the bucket collector's on the Falls Rd. Arms dealers that supplied Angola, a family who funded the IRA and Lockerbie - where is Storrie looking for investors - at war crimes tribunals? They bring shame on football.

if a company is wound up, any sale of the company's property, any transfer of shares, or any alteration in the status of the company's shareholders, made after the commencement of the winding-up is void, unless otherwise ordered by the court. Assuming that legally the winding up process was started when the order was issued, forget any league embargo, surely they can't legally sell players? This means that it is very difficult for a company to continue to trade after a winding up petition is issued. Not arf! I still chuckle at their great response when it was first issued - 'we havent had it, it's illegal, we want to completely restructure the way VAT is calculated, etc'. Clowns and liars.

rant alert! - the idiot who introduces on ITV - He can't say more than.....three words....at a time....without pausing....for no....reason. Mark 'that wasn't handball, it was his chest' Bright - he thought Pompey were robbed in the cup - idiot. Shearer - great goalscorer, sorry mate, bit boring on the box, and do I care what striking legend Robbie Earle thinks about anything? Commentators everywhere - 'that wasn't malicious, he's not that type of player' - sorry guys you are in for a shock here - he IS that type of player as he just stamped on/elbowed another player and anyone who has played the game at any level knows that he DID mean it. Example yesterday - Stoke player was fouled but left his trailing foot in to catch the sliding defender with his studs, we've all done it - accident? Yeah right. When will commentators get some basic understanding of the game and the laws? 'That was a late offside flag' - yes, that'll be because he wasn't offside until he went to the ball. 'But he got the ball' - mmm, he tackled from behind, caught both legs, scissored him to the ground and at some point near the end of the assault the ball happened to clip his knee-high studs. Idiots - most of them, but I let Stuart Hall off because he's entertaining and just a bit mad. Where is football's answer to Bill McLaren? - a proper legend. Rant over.

Q. What's funnier than drawing your local rivals after five years and it being your last chance to smash up their stadium and finally redress the balance of a bitter generation? A. Going out of business that very week and handing them a bye into the next round.

soon we might have to revisit the question about who wants them to survive and who wants them to disappear - the draw will certainly crank up the hate in the next few weeks. Not a good day for the old bill. And if their new investment doesn't appear and the court case forces them into a serious hole as we book our Wembley final, I can see one or two of their supporters using it as a last opportunity to smash someone else's town up. That has the potential to be an interesting week for both clubs. (slight understatement)

it's most likely to be either well-meaning fan-based consortiums who will expect the current owners to pay off the debt, step aside, and hand the club over to them, or corporate sharks looking for a post-admin bargain. In both scenarios any new owners won't want to touch the debt so I see no change to their situation. IF there is a consortium ready to go -they need to open talks/hunt down and agree individual terms with Faraj, Fahim, Gaydamak, Chinrai, creditors, the Prem, AND complete due diligence and all the paperwork in the next three days. That will give them time to strengthen the squad, pay the wages to prevent a player exodus and pave the way for a rosy future. If any deal was that advanced, Storrie would have told the inbreds where to stick their bells and he would be all over the press talking himself up - and he ain't. If we are playing Call My Bluff I'll go for Frank Muir's suggestion that there is in fact no sign of real investment and it is more lies to deflect attention away from the elephant sat in the corner....

someone mentioned a 40% cut for the away club, but that was on Meridian. And having watched the tv game, has Redknapp sold Spurs our songs or did he get them as a payoff? 'get your father's gun, and shoot the Chelsea scum....' - 'oh when the Spurs, go marching in'...??? Are we owed royalties?

I think the Prem may have cleared Chelsea but we can stick a couple of agent fees in their instead so it won't be far out - it is difficult to keep up with this comic saga. Let's also remember that if Chanrai has lent about £18.75M he will be wanting £20M plus now, or maybe £25M over a couple of years, or the ground when the payments halt. The arms dealer/child maimer's amount must be stacking up interest as well. The cost of servicing the loans must be equivalent to the wage bill at the moment because the borrowing will have been at ludicrous rates from people who will bleed them dry. I see no tunnel let alone light at the end of it.

offloading Williamson is like turning up in Haiti with a dustpan and brush. Serious action is required to avoid implosion, and I don't know why the media bother to tell us the wages might be in doubt. If they actually paid the wages - now that would be a news story.

as finance director I'm sure she had no knowledge of unusual practice or the state of the business. There must have been some furtive meetings between her and Storrie in recent months....and much shredding of documents. I wonder which one of them will take the offer of a few weeks in Ford and become the prosecution's main witness when it eventually falls apart?

I do hope they lift this ridiculous embargo and pull through, their 6,000 fans deserve better, but more importantly, where do I get a Udinese shirt with HMRC on the back?

I will miss this thread, hopefully someone can edit the 'best of' and launch a website so we can revisit it when feeling low. If someone could add the timeline of each comic development it would be excellent. It will be a real shock if they go pop, imagine not googling 'Portsmouth on the brink' or meeting here to compare financial notes, I'd have to find a new hobby. Oh well, it's been a golden autumn/winter, all good things come to an end, and it has been the longest running comedy of all time so we shouldn't complain. Fraud, prostitutes, own goals, tax evasion, last minute penalties and of course the stadium plans, hilarious, if only they had shot it in 3D. So for laughs per minute I feel far from shortchanged - if they don't get sued again or convicted of anything else it has still been VERY funny.