Saturday, February 13, 2010
Troubled times: Portsmouth Chief Executive Peter Storrie faces the media at Fratton Park
There are Premier League owners who are so fabulously rich they have scrambled Faberge eggs for breakfast.
These men are blessed with such wealth they have no reason to get out of bed in the morning. Luckily they have motorised beds that drive them directly to where their yachts are moored, often via the poor parts of town in order to inspire the work-shy to make more of themselves.
But these billionaires have been presented with a dilemma. The Premier League are asking for Portsmouth to be given an £11million advance on their television income in an act of unfamiliar charity, a sum that would keep them out of the death grip of the tax-
man for a few weeks more and stall the imminent threat of administration.
What is a billionaire oligarch to do? Hand football’s equivalent of a few quid to a Big Issue seller, or politely decline in case this encourages more begging?
On the face of it, chucking Pompey some loose change sounds a reasonable, even compassionate gesture.
A proud and historic club will remain solvent and the ‘most popular league in the world’™ are spared the embarrassment of watching one of their own being dragged off to the poorhouse.
But this solution is plain wrong. In fact, it is a disgraceful idea, an appalling, short-term botch that would set a horrible precedent.
Portsmouth have wilfully spent millions they didn’t have. For years they siphoned off cash that should have gone to the taxman and juggled funds borrowed from various offshore banks. Not to improve the facilities at Fratton Park or to build a new stadium, but to lure players to the south coast with astronomical sums of money.
They were shopping again yesterday, landing a Serbian defender despite their financial plight. But there has never been a workable plan to meet these ridiculous costs; nothing beyond a vague hope that a trophy, another loan or a dodgy benefactor might cover the debts one day.
They are forever like the fool who buys a Ferrari and then heads to the casino hoping to win the money to pay for it.
However much sympathy anyone feels for their fans (there but for the grace of God, etc.), remember this is a club that earned £70m in their 2008 FA Cup-winning season and still managed to report a £17m loss. No supporters were complaining then. They were ‘living the dream’, just like Leeds United had.
But if Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore’s ‘ring-round’ to the other 19 clubs manages to whip up some temporary PompeyAid, it gives a green light to every owner to act just as irresponsibly, safe in the knowledge that their Sugar Daddy will step in if the credit card is too far over the limit.
Why shouldn’t Portsmouth suffer the consequences of years of mismanagement and misadventure?
What is the point of a sensibly run outfit like Wolves trying to remain in the top flight with a reasonable wage structure when Pompey are blithely excused for running wildly out of control?
What incentive is there for a Championship club to operate on a budget after reaching the Premier League when they see the best way to cling on to their status is to pile loan upon loan?
Arsene Wenger called this smoke-and-mirrors accounting ‘financial doping’ and he is absolutely right. Pompey have been cheating, plain and simple.
Tell me, what makes Crystal Palace, Stockport County, Cardiff City and others currently threatened with ruin so different from Portsmouth? Why should Pompey get a special handout while these clubs fret about going bust?
Instead of finding ways to prop up the current mess, the Premier League should be addressing the real issue, which is to put a check on the staggering level of debt in the game.
It won’t happen. While Scudamore’s job is to gather Premier League owners around the same table, he knows they would still cut one another’s throats at the first opportunity in the name of ‘business’.
But it’s actually terrible business. In the current economic climate, any sensible league would be seriously discussing salary caps, shared sponsorship revenue and a broader distribution of television cash, mirroring models such as America’s National Football League.
Instead, the clubs would rather look after themselves, chuck any straggler a hand-out and move on.
The sadness is a Premier League club will have to go to the wall before football finally comes to its senses. And, uncharitable as it may be to say so, if that club is Portsmouth, then so be it.
source: dailymail
Labels: News Update