Portsmouth supporters deserve answers
Friday, 15 January 2010
Black Thursday
Thursday was a bad day for Pompey fans, as the concerning news seemingly hit the dreaded Yellow Scrolling Bar of Doom on Sky Sports News on an almost hourly basis.
First, it was revealed that Stoke City's opportunistic manager Tony Pulis was in talks with Portsmouth about a loan move for goalkeeper David James. The reported deal would have seen City pay 50% of James' wages until the end of the season, and the fact that Portsmouth would have allowed their first choice goalkeeper (the good form of Asmir Begović notwithstanding) leave in order to get just half of his cost off the balance sheet spoke volumes for their plight.
More worryingly, the deal fell through earlier today, with Portsmouth chief executive Peter Storrie exclaiming that he'd never heard of a Premier League club not wanting to cover the wages in an intra-divisional loan deal.
The thing is, Mr Storrie, Stoke City do not exist to keep your shambolic club in business. They have a very good goalkeeper already and will rightly have no problem at having had to walk away when their cheeky punt on James didn't bear fruit. And in that quote, as much as his willingness to do the deal in the first place, Storrie has betrayed to us all the gravity of Portsmouth Football Club's situation.
Next, it was announced that the Crown Prosecution Service was bringing charges against former Pompey manager Harry Redknapp following a City of London Police and HMRC investigation into corruption in football which has also seen former chairman Milan Mandaric charged.
Redknapp has been charged with two counts of cheating the public revenue. His involvement centres on the evasion of tax to the tune of around £40,000 relating to two payments made by Mandaric to the Tottenham Hotspur manager "via a Monaco bank account". Both men will appear in court in February to answer the charges which date back, of course, to their time at Fratton Park.
And finally, the Premier League announced that the latest installment of Portsmouth's broadcast fees would be funneled directly into the bank accounts of the club's footballing creditors, and left an echoing void where Portsmouth had hoped the end of their transfer embargo would be. In short, it wasn't a good afternoon for the Hampshire club.
Peter Storrie
All in all, the continuing involvement of Peter Storrie, Portsmouth's chief executive, is beginning to create a bit of a stench. Storrie has clung on to his influence despite takeover after takeover and would appear to be doing the club's reputation no good whatsoever.
A long-time friend of Redknapp, Storrie appeared all too willing to let his manager leave Portsmouth to join Newcastle United prior to his eventual Tottenham move, appearing in a jovial joint interview as Redknapp played Newcastle and BBC Radio 5 Live like a xylophone before eventually deciding he wasn't willing to move.
He is also implicated in the current corruption investigation. He was questioned about an alleged concealment of the signing-on fee paid to midfielder Amdy Faye by filtering it through the bank account of not-at-all-dodgy agent Willie McKay, charged, and given a court date of 20th January 2010.
Operate within our means? Nah!
Much of Portsmouth's financial woe seems to stem from the club's bizarre salary strategy under the ownership of Sacha Gaydamak (officially, at least). In October 2008, the News of the World reported that the wage bill at Fratton Park accounted for 90% of the club's turnover.
And while Gaydamak must take responsibility for allowing this to happen, high wage bills appear - like the hoarding of players - to be a feature of Redknapp's managerial style. The NOTW article in question suggests prophetically that Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe and Lassana Diarra would have to be sold, along with Sylvain Distin and Sol Campbell.
However, it also says that this would "rip apart the team carefully put together by boss Harry Redknapp". Why, exactly, is the man who signed all these players completely exonerated when their wages cripple the club? Redknapp, Storrie and Gaydamak should all be held accountable for that particular aspect of the club's demise - not just the ones that haven't ingratiated themselves to a comment-hungry football media.
Portsmouth fans were rightly overjoyed with their 2008 FA Cup win, but even then it seemed clear that Portsmouth Football Club was operating outside its means by a distance.
Ownership rollercoaster
Still, we can spend and spend and then just sell the club to a friendly Middle Eastern billionaire, right?
With things looking distinctly flaky, Storrie and Gaydamak agreed the sale of a post-Redknapp Pompey to "Dr" Sulaiman Al-Fahim, the high-profile broker of the Abu Dhabi Group's takeover of Manchester City. I'll make Portsmouth a great club, he said.
Only he didn't have the means, 'cause he didn't have a bean. Al-Fahim's habit of beefing up his CV was repeatedly exposed by twohundredpercent's Mark Murphy who researched the "Doctor" in microscopic detail.
Property developer? Er...no. Reality TV star? Not so much. UN goodwill ambassador? A bit.
And so within weeks of taking over at Portsmouth, Al-Fahim finally conceded defeat and watched on as Gaydamak secured a deal for a consortium led by another supposed property magnate, Ali Al Faraj, to take over the club. The latest takeover didn't, though, save the day.
Soon, Portsmouth's continued troubles were clear. Players and staff have routinely not been paid between Al Faraj's takeover and January 2010. This includes broken promises over the festive period which finally triggered exclamations of concern from the players, led by full back Steve Finnan.
Quite a lot has happened in the last three years at Portsmouth Football Club - a cup final, Redknapp's departure, police investigations, takeovers - but the ride is far from over. 2010 so far has been spent under the cloud of a winding up order, and desperate attempts to shed costs are failing. With no players coming in, relegation is almost a certainty, and the kind of spiral that could set in motion doesn't bear thinking about.
The football authorities need to ask themselves some serious questions in the light of events at Portsmouth:
- Given his outstanding charge and his involvement with a succession of potentially fatal takeovers, isn't it time Peter Storrie was called in for a bit of a chat?
- Harry Redknapp has been manager at Portsmouth, West Ham United, Southampton and AFC Bournemouth immediately before they fell into financial ruin. While there is no law about wage bills as a percentage of turnover, isn't it worth thinking about legislating against such a strategy?
- If Sulaiman Al-Fahim and Ali Al Faraj were not deemed unfit and improper, what assurances can supporters take from the Fit & Proper Persons Test and its supposed protection of our clubs?
(Pic via Ticket4Football) Read more
