Soccernet can reveal that Portsmouth's actual level of debt is far worse than reported, with £119 million owed to various creditors - including astonishing amounts to agents.
Portsmouth administrator Andrew Andronikou has shown Soccernet the official and highly contentious figures, after working through the night on a full financial report to be made public later on Tuesday.
The relegated club owe £105 million to numerous creditors, secured and unsecured, plus there is an outstanding £14 million due on three transfers - those of Sulley Muntari, Glen Johnson and Jermain Defoe - to a series of money lenders.
Of the £105 million debt, £9 million is owed to 15 agents. In one deal alone, an agent is owed £2.3 million.
The breakdown includes: £90 million owed to unsecured creditors - of which £38 million is due to three previous owners in the form of loans, £5 million to trade creditors, £9 million to agents. There is also £1 million owed on hire purchase. A sum of £14 million which is "off the balance sheet" because it relates to players.
There is also £14 million owed to secured creditors, which is the last owner, Balram Chainrai, in the form of loans.
Soccernet spoke to Andronikou after his all night vigil finalising the figures for the Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) to take the club out of administration. The creditors, however, would still have to accept any offer for their debt from a prospective buyer. Without 75% of creditors agreeing to any proposed deal there can be no CVA.
It is almost certain that they taxman, who is owed a sizeable amount, would attempt to block any offer which would only leave them with a fraction of what they are owed.
"I do not believe that the figures will come as a surprise to anyone who has been interested in buying the club, when they do due diligence it is there for them to see," Andronikou told Soccernet. "So, for that reason, it is not unexpected, although, of course, the figures are vastly different from what has been reported.
"The size of the debt involved won't scare off potential buyers, far from it. We now have a business plan in place that is a projected target over the next three to five years to pay back the creditors, albeit with Xp in the pound. The creditors will get a percentage of their debts back over a number of years, rather than all in one go.
"You have also got to remember that £40 million of the debt involves the old shareholders, the previous owners. The shareholders are owed that amount of money because they put loans into the club, not their own money, it was all built on their loans."
Andronikou also revealed to the extent of the money owed to agents, with super-agent Pini Zahavi one of the biggest creditors according to the accounts.
"There are agents and scouts owed over £9 million," Andronikou confirmed. "There are agents such as Pini Zahavi, who is owed £2 million, but there is one agent who is owed £2.3 million for just one deal alone, the transfer of [Lassana] Diarra, it is staggering.
"There must be something like 15 agents owed money, which illustrates how the club were buying and selling so many big name players."
An exhausted Andronikou added: "It has been a very tiring job, working through the night, but it needed to be done."
Pompey need to move out of administration to have any chance of winning an appeal to play in the Europa League next season, and also to finalise takeover talks.
"We are no nearer to a buyer than we have been for the past two months." Andronikou said. "Will one be in place for the Cup final? Who knows? Rob Lloyd seems keen to make a formal offer, but he has yet to do so, and there is one major sporting franchise group who approached me again the day after we won the semi-final. There are a few fishing around."
Frankly I find it astonishing that this level of debt exists at a such a limited club in the Premiership. It's also great that it's out in the open as you can get a feel for how badly some football clubs are being run!
Comments
cos i'm sure mr pardew can spend with the best/worst of them and would have had us in an even worse position financially than we are currently in ...
imagine the contracts he'd have handed out in the premiership cos they weren't too shabby/ridiculous in the chumpionship....
Utaka. Apparently not true tho.
Rumoured to be John Utaka but he apparently came out claiming it was no more than £25k basic. Don't think he disclosed the bonuses
Harry has always maintained that he knew nothing about the 32 transfers that took place whilst he was Manager and I totally believe him. Honest I do. Really I do. You won't convince me otherwise. So much so that if he told me that he gave all of his Cup winning bonus (bearing in mind that Storrie got £750,000 as a reward) to Charity.
Well when the money lenders go round and break their legs for the money, St John ambulance can refuse to help them.
St John should be paid up front by all clubs or have a central contract with the Football League.
Madrid: Mr Storrie, we will give you 20m for Diarra.
Storrie: Thank you, you have a deal.
Agent: My client wants 80k a week for 5 years.
Madrid: No problem, that is peanuts for us.
Diarra thinks long and hard about whether he wants to leave Portsmouth for one of the worlds most glamorous clubs..........for about 5 seconds then he signs. Agent picks up more money than most of us will earn in a lifetime.
different world mate eh !
From selling cones to running one of footballs oldest clubs into the ground between them yet they're both multi-millionaires as a result. Shameful.
When the admin turned up he claimed the debt was £70m, it would appear that they found more crap while looking at the books.
It will be very tough for them to find a buyer.
Not a fan of Harry Rednapp but the chairmen signs the checks.
... but would you want them to go under? I hate Millwall but would not want them to disappear - local rivalry and all that.
Palaaarse on the other hand, I can't wait for them to disintegrate.
Nice one Harry.
No I don't want them to go under, our rivalry is special.
I do find it funny though considering just 12 months ago they were celebrating our administration by thinking someone worth billions was going to take them over...
When they brought in a load of the Romanian players and players from around that area they were coining it in around the mid 90's and thats from someone who was at the club at the time.
How can a Premiership football club owe money to youth teams, schools, colleges, scout associations etc ?????????
The thing that has really pissed me off about their administration is that they've not been punished. Minus 9 points isn't a punishment as they were never going to stay up, should have got it next season but fingers crossed they fail to get a CVA and get a 15 point deduction for the start of next season.
Also the fact that the £18m owe'd to HMRC will be cut down to about £7m.
You have to wonder why the Premier League aren't employing auditors to look at the books of all clubs in the top flight. They should be audited on an annual basis by a firm of independent auditors.
Careful, that's what Platini suggested and was slated for being "anti-English" or maybe that was the journo's saying what the clubs wanted them to.
It's what they do in France now after years of financial problems. Can't provide accounts or a proper budget and down you go to a lower league. Harsh but fair.
I can only guess that they were donations that haven't been paid.....
Portsmouth Accounts
It a very interesting document. Some of the notable things I found.....
Did you also see the list of players on image rights deals? I thought Sol Campbell being owed £2.3 million for his image was ridiculous but to see that players such as Nugent, Kanu, Ben Hiem and Lauren have similar deals is even more ridiculous.
Also to see how some of their transfers have been financed....
Udinese have to be paid for Muntari around £800,000 for three consecutive months (god knows what they paid before as that's 2 years after he joined!)
Tottenham have to be paid £500,000 for O'Hara's 1 season loan.
Watford have to be paid another £2 million for Williamson (a player who didn't play for them and has since left for Newcastle)
No wonder they're in the brown stuff with accounting like that!
That confused me. I know he was linked with Spurs in January, but did they actually sell him to Spurs, who then sold him to Stoke? Or have they just agreed a deal with Spurs that they receive any money from Begovic to settle outstanding debts?