Portsmouth nearing liquidation
What seemed to be just a bad dream is now turning into a living nightmare for Portsmouth. The club are on the brink of liquidation if they are not able to find an owner or if they are unable to strike a deal with ex-owner Alexandre Gaydamak and would be
buyer Balram Chainrai.
A statement was published on the Portsmouth website ahead of their championship match against Hull City which indicated that administrators and legal advisors had made “extensive efforts” to keep the 2008 F.A cup winners in business.
To make matters worse, Gaydamak has requested a “significant cash payment” to be made by Friday which the club is calling “ransom payment”.
The club was relegated from the Premier League amid grave financial issues last season and the outfit was docked 9 points for going into administration. It was disclosed in a report in April that the club owed a combined total of £ 38.2 million to previous
owners Alexandre Gaydamak and Sulaiman al Fahim, against a total debt which amounted to a whopping £ 119 million.
The statement said that the process had been extremely complicated for the club. A team of people had been working night and day to ensure that the deal gets finalized. However they admitted that the most intricate and difficult aspect had been trying to
achieve the agreement with Alexandre Gaydamak. The remaining parties had agreed to the deal and arranged the requisite documents that included details on the new owners, the administrators, the Football League itself and the creditors.
"Unfortunately, despite the new owners fulfilling all the requirements of the Football League and the creditors, and agreeing and signing up to the required terms of the purchase of the club, at the 11th hour the goalposts have been moved by Mr. Gaydamak
and this has now made the deal impossible to complete.”
"Put simply, despite being offered full payment for the secured part of his debt in accordance with the financial plan approved by the Football League, this morning Mr. Gaydamak has demanded a very significant upfront cash payment in order to allow the deal
to proceed by releasing his security,” the statement read.
The club statement also blasted Mr. Gaydamak and accusing him of taking advantage of the supporters involved at the club and those who were part of the club dealings when he bought the franchise in 2006.
Mr. Gaydamak has been continuously changing his stance to exploit the goodwill of the other parties involved in the transaction. The earlier commitments that were shown by Gaydamak when the club went into administration, now seem hollow rhetoric and don’t
appear to reflect his recent actions.
Should the club cease to exist, it would be a great loss to the game. The club was founded in 1898 and is widely considered as the most successful southern club outside London. The club is one of only 5 English teams to have won back to back English league
titles since WW II.
The club won its first F.A Cup in 1939 before the start of World War II and thus, holds the unusual distinction of holding the trophy for a long uninterrupted time till 1945-46 as leagues all over England were suspended given the circumstances (World War
II).
The club has won the League title 2 times in 1949 and 1950 and hold two F.A Cup triumphs in 1939 and 2008.
The 2009 season saw things turn from bad to ugly for Pompey as Harry Redknapp left the club to join Tottenham and a lot of players started leaving the club for other clubs (4 left for Tottenham) resulting in a player crisis as debts continued to rise.
Things are still looking bleak for the club as there are no signs of any investor who would be willing to save the club and take it out of this mess.
Should the “worst-case scenario” occur, Portsmouth F.C will become only the second football league club after Maidstone United (1992) to go out of business.
The Fratton Park faithful would be hoping for a miracle to happen which can save the club that has such a big and passionate following and would hope that this fall from grace is only temporary.
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