Blog:The net closes in on Portsmouth’s debts
Thursday, January 28th, 2010Another day in the apparent meltdown of Portsmouth began yesterday morning with the club website going offline because the bills had not been settled.
It ended with the manager and chief executive in the dark over the likely sale of the club’s most valuable player. Today? Probably a delay in the payment of players’ wages for the third time in four months.
Peter Storrie, the chief executive, is understood to be “very unhappy” about negotiations carried out behind his back for the transfer of Younès Kaboul to Tottenham Hotspur — as are Avram Grant, the manager, and Mark Jacob, the executive director. The talks were handled instead by Daniel Azougy, the Israeli lawyer employed by the club’s owners to look after Portsmouth’s finances, despite his convictions for fraud and obstruction of justice in Israel.
Storrie said that it was up to the owners if they wanted to sell players, but that ignoring his experience in conducting transfer negotiations left his position close to untenable. “In many ways it probably has,” he said. “If there is a need to sell a player and get a fee, then I feel I am the best person for the ghd hair straighteners situation.” Tanya Robins, the finance director, resigned last week after being sidelined in favour of Azougy.
Kaboul joined Portsmouth in August 2008 from Tottenham, now managed by Harry Redknapp, the Portsmouth manager at the time, but about £2 million of the original fee paid by Portsmouth is still outstanding. But if the move will be as unpopular with supporters as it is with Grant, it may be unavoidable.
It is assumed that the players’ wages will not be paid on time today, while staff received an e-mail yesterday warning them that they face a delay. It is understood that payments to consultants and contractors are much farther in arrears.
Without an injection of funds, the club could not pay the £1.75 million wage bill as well as financing the signings they hope to make now that the Premier League has partially lifted its transfer embargo. The club are allowed to sign players only on loans or free transfers, but they must still find additional wages, loan fees, agents’ fees and signing-on mbt sale bonuses. The club received very little of the £1.6 million reported to remain from their share of the television payout, with the League setting some aside to pay Watford and West Ham United instalments due on the transfers of Tommy Smith and Hayden Mullins respectively.
The chaotic state of the club’s finances was emphasised yesterday when Times Online revealed that the official club website had gone offline as a result of Portsmouth’s failure to pay the company that hosts its online presence. “It’s down because we haven’t paid the bill,” a club source said. “We haven’t kept to the payment schedule.” The site was back up by mid-afternoon after Juicy, the club’s Bournemouth-based digital partner, announced that the two sides had agreed a new payment plan.
The disappearance of an official club voice ghd hair straighteners from the internet in such circumstances is a damaging blow to the club’s standing and a PR embarrassment, but worse could follow.
Portsmouth face a winding-up petition from Revenue & Customs on February 10, and some club insiders are concerned that events may follow a course similar to those this week at Crystal Palace, where administrators were called in the day before a winding-up petition was due to be heard.
Neil Warnock is staying on as manager of Palace despite their slide into administration and the loss of ten Championship points. Palace have debts estimated to be £30 million Mbt shoes and need to raise about £4 million to see out the season.