Pompey and the potential for points deduction

Having carefully got through as far as Prescot Cables in the first half of my round up of clubs in trouble below the Premier League, I had rather assumed that I could at least get Part 2 published before returning to the subject of Portsmouth.  Clearly that was not meant to be.  So here are some first thoughts on what will be an ongoing saga of, well, Pompeyesque proportions.

For most fans there will be the question of points deduction, a matter for the Football League.  As it stands, at least for the moment, the company which owns Pompey, Portsmouth Football Club (2010) Limited, is not in Administration, as it is at pains to point out in its official statement (1); it is the parent company, Convers Sports Initiative plc, which is (2).  It is the issue of how closely the two companies are linked that the Football League will have to rule on.

The obvious precedent to spring to mind is that of deadly rivals Southampton, where the decision was that the company owning the club and the parent company were so intimately involved that the club should suffer points deduction on account of the parent company going into Administration.  It’s worth quoting from the Football League’s statement (3) at the time:

The [Grant Thornton] report [on which the decision was based] concluded, among other things, that:

1.The Holding Company has no income of its own; all revenue and expenditure is derived from the operation of Southampton Football Club Limited (SFC) and the associated stadium company.

2.The Holding company is solvent in its own right. It only becomes insolvent when account is taken of the position of SFC and the other group companies.

3.The three entities (the Holding Company, SFC and the stadium company) comprise the football club and they are inextricably linked as one economic entity.

If we compare the situation at Southampton then with the situation at Portsmouth now, there are major differences.  At Portsmouth currently:

1. CSI does have income of its own and definitely does not derive all its income and expenditure from Portsmouth Football Club (2010)
2. CSI is insolvent in its own right; its insolvency does not arise because of any insolvency on the part of Portsmouth Football Club (2010)  [I grant you that it’s hardly a cash cow, but it’s not Portsmouth that has brought CSI down]
3. CSI and Portsmouth Football Club (2010) are not inextricably linked as one economic entity; CSI’s website shows their structure (4) to consist of a number of unrelated subsidiaries: Boom!, DGB Convers, GP Week, Leaders, Power Play Golf, Sportpost and WRC, as well as Portsmouth FC

On this basis, there is a strong case that CSI’s Administration should not result in a points deduction for Portsmouth.

If Portsmouth Football Club (2010) should itself seek protection by going into Administration, that would be entirely different matter, and points deduction would without doubt be incurred.  The Football League has no precise published tariff, but I would expect something in the region of 17 to 20 points.  How likely is that to happen?  The Administrators of CSI will almost certainly be looking to sell off its components, and Portsmouth is in effect already ‘on the market’.  With the added complication of Portpin and Balram Chainrai’s involvement in the insolvency of CSI though, it’s not a club that will be fighting off suitors.  In the meantime, the club “has funding in place for the short term, but will now be seeking alternative investment for its longer-term requirements”.

Not a very encouraging situation, but what’s new for Pompey fans?

[For new readers, I make clear that I am Portsmouth fan and a member of the Pompey Supporters Trust.  The thoughts above are, nonetheless,  my thoughts from the perspective of an academic researcher.]

Round the lower levels Part 1

Plenty has been happening once you look down the football pyramid since I last gave a general overview.  The continually flashing lights on my radar screen have of course been Plymouth Argyle and Wrexham, although, for entirely different reasons, I have resisted the very strong temptation to blog on these two clubs.  In the case of Plymouth, I have been put off by the plethora of non-news that has been churned out over the last few months – it seemed as if 90% of this consisted of Peter Ridsdale purring that one of two takeover attempts was due to completed ‘next wekk’.  At Wrexham, in distinct contrast, real news was happening at a staggering rate – I did actually start a posting, but, while, I was writing it, two press releases issued which made my opening paragraph redundant.  In any case, my friends over at Twohundredpercent gave (happenings and non-happenings) at both clubs excellent coverage.

A third nebula seems to heading towards my radar screen – the ever-dependable Portsmouth, but with one Henry James Redknapp due in court shortly, I’ll hold back for the moment at least.

It’s not as if the radar screen has been otherwise blank though.  In alphabetical order of clubs then:

• Astley Bridge
  (I haven’t managed to identify which league the club plays in – any offers?)
  The club, which has been around since 1892 (1), is under threat thanks to thieves who stole the club’s pitch mower (2).  The club cannot afford the alternative of having the council mow their three pitches at a charge of £1500 for five cuts.

• Bournemouth
  The club has failed to buy back its Dean Court stadium which it was forced to sell and lease back almost six years ago (3).  Meanwhile, 50% of the club’s shares have been sold to a 41 year-old Russian petrochemicals trader (4), and chairman Eddie Mitchell purred “His arrival brings security to the club”.  Is it just the Pompey fan in me that finds this less than reassuring?  I hope so.

• Carlisle
  Carlisle have formidable issues with the existing Brunton Park stadium, not least the threat of a repeat of the 2005 flooding (5).  Just over two years ago the club was losing £1.2m a year and facing gates down to just over 6,000 (6).  By March 2010, gates were down to around 5,200 and budget cuts had to be imposed (7).
  Now we have the results of a feasibility study (8) and ‘Project Blue Yonder’, which would see the building of a new 12,000-seater stadium (9).  Certainly this appears more realistic than Plymouth Argyle’s ill-fated plans for a 40,000+ stadium, but not a great deal more so – Plymouth has a population of just over 250,000 whereas Carlisle’s population is just over the 100,000 mark.
  No easy solutions to the club’s dilemma I’m afraid.

• Dawlish Town
  I’m a bit thin on information here, but a link (10) said that the club had withdrawn from the Western League Premier Division in July.
  The club website (11) is still live, but does not appear to have been updated recently.  With doubtless no intended irony, it still has a link to an item headed “Chairman dreams of promotion and new stadium ”
  Their Wikipedia entry (12) begins with that damning phrase “Dawlish Town A.F.C. was a football club… ”
  A Facebook page (13) implies that the club has disappeared, and a new FC Dawlish Town is being formed.
  Can anyone with local knowledge expand on this?

• Harlow Town
  A winding-up petition from HMRC was dismissed in court o 14 November because the club had paid its tax bill (15).  This followed on entering a CVA in September 2009 (16).
  See also postings passim.

• Hucknall Town
  After a particularly turbulent period last season (16), the club has new owners (17) who talk of turning into a community club.   There is even talk, perhaps just a tad OTT, of the club as a ‘sleeping giant’ (18).  All in all, things a lot a rosier nonetheless.

• Kettering Town
  Ah, the inimitably enigmatic Imran Ladak!  See postings passim.
  Having solved the impending problem of the end of their ease, Ladak took the club to Rushden’s Nene Park (19), which everyone hoped would see the start of a new period of stability (for Kettering, at least)
  Ladak is now ‘open to offers’ for the club (20), the entire team is transfer listed (21), players are partly unpaid (22), and as a result it has been transfer embargoed (23)
  Who can guess what Ladak will do next?  This, after all, is the man who brought in Gazza to run the club, sacking him after six games (24).

• Prescot Cables
  This Community Interest Club has taken the decision to return to being an amateur club, the financial pressure having built up following the lack of a sponsor (25).

Part 2 will be coming to a screen near you shortly.  I’ve now more or less recovered from the failure of my laptop’s CPU and hence its scrapping, so normal service should now be resumed.

A not quite 24 carat golden age of football ethics?

Received wisdom seems to be that, once the baton of running FIFA was passed on from safe and reliable English hands, there was a rapid descent into a quagmire of unethical goings on.  Even Uncle Sepp himself now admits that FIFA “has had a rough time of late” and concedes that there is now “the need for change and the urgent need for sweeping reforms” (1).  He concludes “FIFA remains committed to walking the walk and won’t get stuck in solely talking the talk. By December, this will become clear for all to see. Until then, I invite everybody to bear with us so that we can clean house and come back to the public with facts that allow FIFA to enter a new decade of doing business. And never again revert to doing “business as usual”.“  Whether he himself decides to ‘walk the walk’ is anybody’s guess.

I’m just back from a work trip and have been reading en route Sir Stanley Rous’s autobiography Football Worlds, published in 1978, a couple of years after he had been replaced as FIFA’s President by João Havelange.  A couple of passages particularly caught my eye as they reveal that back then all was not 100% squeaky clean.  Consider this first quote:

“In Nasser’s day I was once present to watch a game there when the Sudan played Egypt in the final of a competition.  My host was General Mostafa, later Vice-President of FIFA, and an enthusiastic crowd of 110,000 worked themselves to a pitch of excitement when the winner had to be drawn by lot after the game had ended with the scores level.  The referee was blindfolded before making the draw, and a great roar of cheers greeted his pulling out the slip with Egypt on it.

“When the General returned from the field I congratulated him on the luck of the draw.  He replied that there was no luck involved as, by agreement, both pieces of paper had Egypt written on them.  He may have been joking, but the Sudanese officials showed no sign of disappointment and the result made the day for Nasser and the spectators.“

This, for some reason, brought to mind a different recent occasion when, rather than two identical slips of paper, a voting card had only one choice on it.

Sir Stanley was not averse to telling a story against himself.  He writes this from his days refereeing, concerning a game between Millwall and Charlton:

“At a crucial point in the game I saw a defender’s hand fist the ball away in a goalmouth melee.  As I blew the whistle for a penalty the players untangled themselves and looked at me in surprise.  It was then that I realised that it was the goalkeeper, not a full-back, who had punched the ball.  So I walked past the penalty spot, past the goalposts, to the edge of the crowd and called at the top of my voice: ‘If the man with the whistle blows it again I will have him removed.’  Then I restarted the game by dropping the ball and the mistake was retrieved without disaster.“

A more innocent age perhaps, or perhaps not, than the kind of confessions that can appear in autobiographies today (2) – a reference to Matt Le Tissier, to save you clicking through.

Overall, one would have to conclude that, compared to today’s ills, it was generally a much more ethical football scene, but not some Halcyon era of perfect ethics.