I agree with KHA. Not all Portsmouth council tax payers support Pompey. What if a few are members of a local hockey club that is in dire straits, should not the Council be baling them out too? If the Council end up talking a hit of over a million, which is quite possible, other services will suffer such as children protection services and if this decision means even one child suffering unecessary abuse then the decision taken is wrong and disgraceful.
As a side issue. I can't understand why any company, would do business with most football clubs, unless they were getting paid in advance. I know I wouldn't.
As I understand it the basis of the law suit is that the former owner foreclosed and took the asset but also still requires the loan to be paid, a bit like your house being reposessed and the bank still after you for the mortgage. But I am not a finance expert or legal one..
As a side issue. I can't understand why any company, would do business with most football clubs, unless they were getting paid in advance. I know I wouldn't.
This is why, often, it is HMRC that end up taking the clubs to court to seek a liquidation order. Income Tax and National Insurance is deducted from the employees (players) and paid to HMRC on a monthly or quarterly basis. They can hold off paying this for a couple of months to help their cash flow. Thus they are not, exactly, offered credit terms they just don't pay their bills. With the sums that footballers earn these days these deductions can soon be hundreds of thousands of pounds.
TBH most if not all of the owners over the last 10 years need to be brought up and asked some very serious questions - of which the first one should be Where is the money ? However, why should the real fans/people of Portsmouth be shat upon because of the financial irregularities of people that the FA have determined as being 'fit and proper people'. Yes, let them be a phoenix (and thats all that Pompey fans expect btw), but to decide to exterminate the club just because of scandalous previous owners aint right.
I think you've missed the point. Football clubs are important but they have overspent many times over. They have appeared in two FA Cup finals and they won one of them.
This was all done with someone else's money. There comes a point when the rest of the world (and I'm really talking about those that don't care for football) refuse to continue to bankroll a business that is taking the pee. It is tax payers money that is being lost and/or used to fund it.
Go out into the main high street in Portsmouth and find someone who had a relative that has just died of something that was treatable but treatment was refused because tough choices need to be made with the limited amount of money available and ask them if they think another £1.45m of money that could have saved their loved one should be used to bankroll a football club that has already failed to repay over £100m they they borrowed.
Keep blaming the foreign owners all day long it won't change the fact that the club paid players a fortune then was unable to pay the income tax and national insurance on those wages. Money that belongs to us - the tax payers.
I think it would have been more credible if they hadn't agreed to come out of hat administration then went on to sign another load of players and spent another £60m that they are now expecting the creditors to write off.
Unless all of the debt is totally written off, and while we're at it the season ticket holders would have to fork out again, there is almost no way the Supporters Trust can bankroll the club in the fourth division with the cost of maintaining a knackered ground.
The club were never, ever going to be able to honour the agreement they made to waive the majority of the £150m. There is also little chance of the new structure (unless the council rebuild the ground and/or waive the rates) can keep its head above water. Where is the £3m going to come from to buy the ground?
If the fans really can raise £5m why didn't they do so two years ago when small business owners were losing their homes because the club owed them so much money.
The ultimate question is just how much money is it going to take and where is it going to come from?
My point is that they have no long term plan, they just keep getting a further stay of execution after another one. If they'd been wound up three years ago the £60 they are now about to fail to repay would never have been spent.
I, personally, think that's too much money for what is essentially a hobby for a minority.
Good post KHA. I cant argue against your logic. Funny that football seems to defy logic at times. Did you know (as my Pompey supporting boss reminded me this morning) that the club that Pompey have played the most in their history is......us (unless my boss is telling me total bollx - wouldnt be the first time !!)
As you may have spotted I'm usually very supportive of the public sector and local authorities in particular but I find it very hard to justify what is being proposed at a time when their own staff are being made redundant.
While I have every a great deal of sympathy with their supporters I would be mightily pee'd off if this were happening in my own area and I'm very surprised that there's been no claim made that the council is acting ultra vires to put a stop to it.
why would an ST raise £5m to give it to a club that was bankrupt, and owned by someone else, if I understand you right?
This is the crux of why the club should have been liquidated a long time ago. Successive 'owners' come in and watch the previous creditors lose their homes while they sign more players. Like I said above the Portsmouth fans have had the benefit of the money that has been spent and now they are proposing to own the club (which will be bought for a fraction of what the assets are worth) and they are buying it with someone else's money, which they intend to repay with the parachute payments that were 'earned' with players that were paid with money that was, ultimately, funded by the creditors that lost most of their money.
How is this better than the foreign owners coming in and lending the club money and then expecting the turnover of the club to pay it back?
I'm not against Supporter's Trusts, but the parachute money is a reward for having been in the Premier League. Their stay in the Premier League was funded by that £150m that they never paid back. How, on earth, can it be fair that the club is bought and funded with those legacy payments?
Incidentally I think that all parachute payments should cease if a club goes into Administration. At the very least they should be used to repay the creditors.
Also, how can it be fair, for the other clubs, that Portsmouth can wipe off their debt again and then start a season in the 4th division with parachute payments that are probably more than the turnover of any three teams in that division added together?
I personally think the trust movement as a whole should be pushing for a sustainable break even model for funding throughout the game, the problem you highlight is a systemic one and not the fault of pompey fans?
Incidentally I think that all parachute payments should cease if a club goes into Administration. At the very least they should be used to repay the creditors.
Also, how can it be fair, for the other clubs, that Portsmouth can wipe off their debt again and then start a season in the 4th division with parachute payments that are probably more than the turnover of any three teams in that division added together?
Surely Pompey aren't still getting parachute payments? I thought they only lasted for 2 years.
I personally think the trust movement as a whole should be pushing for a sustainable break even model for funding throughout the game, the problem you highlight is a systemic one and not the fault of pompey fans?
I think you are right with one exception. Your last bit. The fans are just as much a part of the systemic problem. We as fans do not question enough when our clubs are successful by the time we kick up a stink it is generally when the money has already dissappeared.
on one hands the fans don't have money or ownership, the next its their fault.. well whichever it is perhaps its time for a change, and not when its too late
Sorry, I should have been clearer. It has a particular legal meaning when it comes to administrative law but essentially razil is right in his definition.
Looking at whats happened to Pompey it just shows how lucky we were to have a chairman like Richard Murray who always was very careful with the clubs finances and never spent beyond the clubs means.
Looking at whats happened to Pompey it just shows how lucky we were to have a chairman like Richard Murray who always was very careful with the clubs finances and never spent beyond the clubs means.
And Pardew then spent both parachute money & Darren Bent proceeds! Perhaps parachute payments were withheld when Portsmouth ran into trouble? Maybe some TV money should be withheld from ALL clubs and given direct to HMRC if/when a club falls over.
It is the players and agents who are taking out more than their real commercial value because everyone is chasing the same talent pool and clubs are chasing the dream of promotion to the premier league. And some directors appear to take money out of clubs even when the club isn't stable. It is going to take someone stronger than the FA to sort this out!
I think the FFP was introduced to prevent HMRC from deciding that football as a collective should be responsible for it's debts. If they could get all Premier League clubs to chip in when one fails to pay it's bills there would be a much greater effort to prevent those threatened with relegation gamble everything on staying up.
That is surely unsustainable where they are now. The monthly payments are over 100k per month.
You can see why they've been in Administration a couple of times can't you. I can also see why the world and Hus wife want to ban the footballers' creditors rule.
Those payments could well cause another administration with HMRC and local businesses taking another hiding.
Comments
As I understand it the basis of the law suit is that the former owner foreclosed and took the asset but also still requires the loan to be paid, a bit like your house being reposessed and the bank still after you for the mortgage. But I am not a finance expert or legal one..
Did you know (as my Pompey supporting boss reminded me this morning) that the club that Pompey have played the most in their history is......us (unless my boss is telling me total bollx - wouldnt be the first time !!)
While I have
everya great deal of sympathy with their supporters I would be mightily pee'd off if this were happening in my own area and I'm very surprised that there's been no claim made that the council is acting ultra vires to put a stop to it.How is this better than the foreign owners coming in and lending the club money and then expecting the turnover of the club to pay it back?
I'm not against Supporter's Trusts, but the parachute money is a reward for having been in the Premier League. Their stay in the Premier League was funded by that £150m that they never paid back. How, on earth, can it be fair that the club is bought and funded with those legacy payments?
Also, how can it be fair, for the other clubs, that Portsmouth can wipe off their debt again and then start a season in the 4th division with parachute payments that are probably more than the turnover of any three teams in that division added together?
Surely Pompey aren't still getting parachute payments? I thought they only lasted for 2 years.
"Currently relegated clubs get £48m over four seasons (£16m in the first two seasons, £8m in the next two – payments cease if they go back up)"
Perhaps parachute payments were withheld when Portsmouth ran into trouble?
Maybe some TV money should be withheld from ALL clubs and given direct to HMRC if/when a club falls over.
It is the players and agents who are taking out more than their real commercial value because everyone is chasing the same talent pool and clubs are chasing the dream of promotion to the premier league. And some directors appear to take money out of clubs even when the club isn't stable.
It is going to take someone stronger than the FA to sort this out!
http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/pompey/player-by-player-breakdown-of-what-pompey-owe-1-5468027 (From 7/9/13)
Here is the full breakdown of money owed to former Pompey players
DAVID NUGENT
Total outstanding: £143,250
Payable by: 40 monthly payments of £3,581.25.
DAVID JAMES
£145,921.90 – 40 months of £3,648.05.
KANU
£155,314.50 – three lump-sum payments of £51,771.50 in March 2014, 2015 and 2016.
BENJANI
£214,572.73 – 4O months of £5,364.32.
HAYDEN MULLINS
£632,281.32 – 28 monthly payments of £21,867.19. One lump-sum payment of £20,000 in January 2016.
AARON MOKOENA
£288,844.80 – 40 months of £7,225.92.
DAVID NORRIS
£182,729.92 – 40 months of £4,568.26.
ARUNA DINDANE
£176,245.03 – 40 months of £4,406.13.
LUKE VARNEY
£153,818 – 40 months of £3,845.
ERIK HUSEKLEPP
£40,000 – lump-sum payment of £20,000 in January 2014 and January 2015.
HASSAN YEBDA
£264,491.44 – 40 months of £6,612.29.
STEPHEN HENDERSON
£42,935.86 – 40 month of 1,073.40.
GREG HALFORD
£162,802.76 – 40 months of £4,070.07.
RICARDO ROCHA
£165,136.61 – 40 months of £4,128.40.
JAMIE ASHDOWN
£78,731.92 – 40 months of £1,968.30.
JASON PEARCE
£29,162.51 – 40 months of £729.06.
HERMANN HREIDARSSON
£42,935.86 – 40 months of £1,073.40.
KELVIN ETUHU
£3,000 – one payment made on Aug 30, 2013.
JOEL WARD
£20,206.57 – 40 months of £505.16.
STEVE FINNAN
£88,312.50 – 40 months of £2,207.81.
MICHAEL BROWN
£472,375 – lump-sum payment of £200,000 on Aug 30, 2013. 40 months of £6,809.38.
RICHARD HUGHES
£372,484.42 – lump-sum payment of £200,000 on Aug 30, 2013. 40 months of £4,312.11.
LIAM LAWRENCE
£616,666.54 – lump-sum payment of £200,000 on Aug 30, 2013. 40 months of £10,416.67.
DAVE KITSON
£608,333.36 – lump-sum payment of £150,000 on Aug 30, 2013. 40 months of £11,458.33.
TAL BEN HAIM
£1,633,333.36 – lump-sum payments of £650,000 on Aug 30, 2013 and £150,000 on Aug 31, 2014. 40 months of £20,833.33.
*Kanu payment will be split in accordance with an Order of Finance Disciplinary Committee.
Those payments could well cause another administration with HMRC and local businesses taking another hiding.