rallyboy

so another little gem emerges, they paid half of Sol's wages as 'image rights' to avoid tax and NI. There is no way you could justify matching a players wages with an equal amount as a rights payment, I believe this may be called fraud. Hopefully the rest of football is now realising that Pompey have been cheating for years, since they bought their way out of the championship with money they didn't have. Please put this poor animal out of it's misery, it's suffered long enough, it no longer has dignity nor a quality of life. I'll go dig a hole in the garden.

cold facts - On the pitch - they have proved to be the worst team over half a season, they are likely to weaken as others like West Ham strengthen. Likely scenario - relegation. Off the pitch - big money needed now, the type of money that hasn't been found in a year, so unlikely to appear. Likely scenario - stumble into Championship with very weak squad - drop again? In court - they are likely to lose the tax case and should the other three be found guilty the resulatant forensic examination of their accounts could lead to penalties. Likely scenario - further charges against the club itself. Potential results, give or take a few charges and penalties.... 1. The club ceases to exist. 2. They are demoted to non-league. 3. They drop two divisions very quickly. 4. They are relegated and struggle. 5. They are relegated but rebuild. 6. They survive in the Prem. 7. They build a new 60,000 seater harbourside stadium complex for World Cup games and Maradona leads their squad of Galacticos to Champion's League glory. the thought of them folding completely seems far-fetched but with every passing day it becomes a realistic possibility, if I was a betting man I think I will go for a penalty-assisted version of 3. And for those with blue-tinted specs - you only need two wins and all your troubles are over, you've been unlucky, you're playing really well, sign a good striker this week and you'll be mid-table, the press is nasty, so are the judges and the taxman, it's not fair etc.

Solent just announced that they have lost the appeal!!!!!!

Interesting that they still seem to regard themselves as the pluckly little victim putting the nasty authorities in their place. In reality all the power must be with the taxman and the league - behind all the bravado it sounds like a big day for them - the countdown to implosion could be triggered today.

That can't be right - it makes the club sound like a corrupt company that has been run by criminals for their own personal gain, and that wouldn't be tolerated by the Premier League. I'm sure these fit and proper people will be cleared of all charges and continue to be heroes to the blue few. And if these three were running around with filthy cash hanging out of their holes from signing overpaid players via dodgy agents for no reason, I can't see how that could lead to an unsustainable wage bill and financial collapse... It's not like they closed their youth team to concentrate on 'unusual' transfer activity a few years ago, that would make it sound like they planned huge personal gain and deliberately prevented young players coming through to halt their little scheme. It must be the nasty press picking on the plucky underdog again. I'm sure it's all a misunderstanding, as are the land issues, ownership, unpaid debts, wagebill, etc, etc. Is it correct that Redknapp signed Nugent and Utaka on the same day? To sign one liability is unfortunate, to do it twice on the same day could be considered criminal.

'Pompey could get TV money!' - great headline, no substance though. This is Scudamore drawing a clear line in the sand and making sure the fans know that the ball is in Pompey's court so when they don't get the money he can refer them to his statement about proof. And he wants to see legally-binding re-written contracts? Good luck with that, they shredded the originals when the door was being kicked in. He'd better look on Storrie's computer, it's in the bath and the hard drive was flushed. Is it time yet for the predictable mysterious blaze that starts in the accounts dept and spreads through the offices that deal with all relevant paperwork?...

I've been away for a week so just been catching up - other than threatening the league and then withdrawing it, having a show of strength attending by 75 people, watering the pitch all night to postpone certain defeat attempting to rewrite the UK VAT rules. Have they done anything else that would make me chuckle?

let's remember how clubs queued up to buy our squad that must have been valued at £25M. They are dreaming. I do agree with the post about them hanging on for a bit, I would rather they stumbled to relegation on merit, which I think is within their capability, and then start next season with a 35pt penalty for all the offences that are stacking up.

if they now want the league to guarantee loans have they run out of things to secure against? Is this the last loan they can get? This has been a VERY funny thread but nothing made me laugh out loud as much as when they claimed their squad is worth £50M!!

I seem to recall fans and senior figures from other clubs shouting that we were in admin when Southampton Football Club was clearly not. If the authorities were happy to decide that our club was in admin when it wasn't, with no right of appeal, I see no reason for suggesting now that Portsmouth are anything but totally bankrupt.

as well as the tainted cup win let's remember they bought their way out of the championship with unsustainable wages so anyone who is considering sympathy when they go into freefall should realise they are just returning to their natural position. Wenger has it right, using players you can't afford is cheating. At least we were just run into the ground by idiots!

it's about time Barclays came out and apologised for the appalling service they've been giving the club - every month there's a mistake, a corrupted file here, further delay there - the bank manager needs to explain exactly why his staff keep making these errors. And as a sponsor of the best league in the world the bank is bringing the Prem into disrepute and making one of it's established and respected clubs look silly.

if the worst happens the outstanding big loan will see the ground go into new hands, the child-maiming arms dealer will claim everything else, the administrator will be selling just the club name plus responsibility for the remaining debt to the taxman and clubs. Those debts HAVE to be paid if you want to continue as a football club - so for £10M you will get the club name, no ground, no land, a handful of player contracts that no one wants PLUS the opportunity to haggle with all kinds of loan sharks who own the stuff you need. You can rent the ground from its new owner for a few million a year so after coughing up maybe £20M you will be the proud owner of an asset-free business that can't sustain itself - a black hole. All you have to do then is take out loans secured against the tv money for league one or two. See, they do have a way out after all, it's called freefall. And on the money laundering - how about this for an idea? The arms dealer gets the club to take out loans all over the show, he takes that new cash to get his money back, the company then crashes and defaults on the loans, he's paid up thank you very much, and it's someone else's problem. But that would be trading illegally I hear the experts cry - mmmm, but has that worried them thus far?

I think you should at least pay your poor captain before bragging about the glorious 1-0 win over cash-strapped Cardiff. 'When Sol went up to lift the fa cup, he didn't get paid, he didn't get paid!' How much did that win cost? About £100M? Or the whole club? That's one expensive day out.

so we have an arms dealer on the run and a man who sued him for millions queued up behind the taxman as the two main creditors of a bankrupt club with no income, owned by arabs and fantasists, controlled by jews, with the day to day running in the hands of convicted fraudsters and those awaiting court appearances on tax evasion. What could possibly go wrong? -and they're still worried more about what goes on out on the pitch.

Does anyone know when the tickets for the world cup final in the harbourside stadium at Portsmouth actually go on sale? If they play their champions league ties in it before that I wouldn't mind seeing one of them as well, though presumably with only 70,000 available there won't be many for the casual fan.

It was a poor attendance but I'm astonished that as many fans as that still think the club's management deserve their support. 'But the club needs our cash' mutter the toothless simpletons....yeah, but the gate money isn't going into your beloved club, it's going straight out of the door to an odd collection of financers and to prop up a distant landmine factory. They may yet be able to stumble through and complete the season but the debts are just climbing with every loan and a loss of big Sky cash would surely mean instant implosion. They have to stay up to survive, obsessive gambler Storrie is down to his pants and his house keys have gone on the table now - I wonder how lucky he feels...at least he has no other worries on his mind, like being banged up.

they've been bankrupt for months, they just won't accept it. That was a massive result today for them, the money from a replay might cover Utaka's wages for a day or two. Another loan? More like another nail in the coffin. More repayments, no income, overheads spiralling even higher, less attractive to a potential buyer - insanity.

sorry pes, you seem a sensible bloke but we won't buy the 'handful', I was there and heard it, I also don't accept the fact that home fans' reactions were a factor or that Saints fans would have done the same in the circumstances - best you leave that one be, we all have our opinions on it. Either way, Ted looks happy enough now he's the right shape, and he's still waving goodbye.

was the arms dealer promised the Sky money and he now realises he isn't going to see it? I see no other reason for him paying wages for a business that cannot repay his outstanding debt, it must have been a short term emergency loan -of course he doesn't want to lose the lot but there's no sign of any significant future income. And before you say 'the next load of tv cash', it's all secured and promised already, it's gone. The business, and I use the term loosely, has no proper revenue stream, gate money and sponsorship don't cover the interest payments or one player's wages. The arms dealer is trying to minimise his losses but with no sign of any income he might be getting restless and trigger happy quite soon....

so, all of you financial experts out there, let's get into the nitty gritty as the year of implosion is now upon them. Admin seems inevitable, how is it likely to pan out on the practical side? If I'm the man with a loan secured against the ground, what happens in admin? Do I get the ground on the back of my loan agreement or do I have to wait for Mr Fry and friends to sell it and he decides who gets what? Can we then expect potential new owners to gather at the closing down sale and try and pick up the land etc to recreate a future going concern or do we think all secured assets will have been scattered across creditors by then?

I couldn't handle the hilarity of going back to the start of the thread, is it possible to pull a bladder muscle?... Been talking to my mates from the darkside today, they are resigned to relegation, angry at the criminal owners, and rightly concerned about the future. I took it easy on them but the cross-eyed, sister-bothering Bates abusers might like to note that Ted is still stood there, dignified, correctly-proportioned and do you know, he's looking out across the water to the east and waving goodbye to someone. It might have been noisy for him that night but boy has it gone quiet now! And the arms dealer's nipper has got some cheek raising questions over the true identity of the owners!!

whatever happens there will be a Portsmouth FC in 2010, the question is what division/league they will be playing in a year from now. Worst case scenario from their point of view - full financial crash, new club, no ground, Blue Square? Best case - new funding in January and they stay in the Prem. not really, there is no best case! I reckon they will end up in the championship facing continued financial woes and an inevitable relegation battle.

even when they're facing the prospect of the taxman closing the business, we still get lies and garbage as an official response. It's insulting to their dwindling fanbase who at least need someone to admit that the room is indeed full of elephants. The running of Portsmouth FC has been criminal and in weaker moments I feel that maybe sympathy should be in order....but I shrug it off quite comfortably when reminded of the arrogant abuse directed west and the hilarity of the world cup harbour stadium and Maradona fiascos. We are living through a golden era - 104 pages and counting. If Pompey go out of business and this thread ends, I'll miss the thread.

Any proper experts out there who can give us some detail on where this is likely to go? It must be a serious development, don't other creditors now have the opportunity to join the revenue's action and increase the pressure to pay? They could then need to find £30M by Feb....