It never rains but it pours for fans of crisis club Portsmouth.
After yesterday’s announcement that they were £120million in debt – debts that included £40 to Pukka Pies and 20p to Qatar Airways, no, seriously – it has today been announced that the FA Cup finalists will be unable to take their place in the Europa League next season.
With final opponents Chelsea already assured of their place in the Champions League for 2010/11, Pompey would, under normal circumstances, have taken their place in Europe’s second-tier competition next season – except that they didn’t apply for it.
Admittedly they did have a lot else on their plate, but relegated Pompey’s failure to adhere to the March 1st deadline to apply for a Uefa Club Licence for next season means that they won’t be embarking on another European adventure – such as they did last season when they faced AC Milan (pictured) – alongside their Championship campaign.
That extra European place will now go to the team who finishes in seventh place in the Premier League, a competition that Pompey don’t look like returning to any time soon given their current plight.
Their FA Cup final day out at Wembley on May 15th is a thoroughly deserved one for Avram Grant, his players and their supporters, but the financial mismanagement that was laid bare yesterday is truly staggering, and underlines the complete unprofessionalism and recklessness that have crippled the club.
The players have already been stripped of the right to decide their own survival chances in the Premier League, and now they – or those that are still there next season at any rate – have been robbed of the chance to play in Europe next season too. All by people who should have known better, people who should have had the best interests of the club at heart, and people who messed up so badly that they ended up owing Tottenham Hotspur £1million for a goalkeeper who never even played for Spurs.
Asmir Begovic moved from Pompey to Stoke in the January transfer window, after turning down the opportunity to join teammate Younes Kaboul in a joint move to Tottenham. A bizarre clause – which Pompey agreed to – in the initial agreement of the Kaboul-Begovic joint transfer to Spurs meant that it would cost the south-coast club a seven-figure sum if either player went elsewhere, which Begovic duly did. Spurs will be laughing all the way to the bank.
During this time, all of Pompey’s transfer negotiations were being led by Daniel Azougy, a convicted Israeli fraudster who was employed to run the club's finances by the Falcondrone consortium that took control in October. Solicitor Mark Jacob, then employed as executive director, was also on board then too.
In truth, the Begovic deal is one of the less bizarre details of yesterday’s report, which cryptically states that the club owe over £300 in “ransom payments”, while also owing current or former players almost £2million in unpaid wages and bonuses, whilst over 400 trade creditors – including local schools, community sports clubs, florists, builders and newsagents – are collectively owed £4.37million. The Scouts are owed £697. You suspect that no-one at Pompey ever got a Numeracy badge from their Leader.
Many creditors are unlikely to ever get paid, as the chaotic decision making, rampant overspending and unrealistic ambitions of previous regimes continue to affect this current crop of Portsmouth players and their talented manager.
Neutrals everywhere will still be supporting him and his team in the FA Cup final, but no sympathy should be felt for those behind the scenes, both past and present. If Pompey were to win at Wembley, they should look away in embarrassment.
Frankly, they shouldn’t be able to look themselves in the mirror.
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