It”s not often that a question is asked at Prime Minister’s Question Time in the House of Commons about a football club, but that is what happened last week. David Cameron gave a sympathetic reply to one of the Portsmouth MPs, expressing the hope that talks could take place with Revenue and Customs about the club’s tax debt and noting that he realised that Pompey fans could not switch their allegiance to rivals Southampton.
It”s not often that a question is asked at Prime Minister’s Question Time in the House of Commons about a football club, but that is what happened last week. David Cameron gave a sympathetic reply to one of the Portsmouth MPs, expressing the hope that talks could take place with Revenue and Customs about the club’s tax debt and noting that he realised that Pompey fans could not switch their allegiance to rivals Southampton.
Unfortunately, Portsmouth are on the brink once again. Despite assurances by former owner Balram Chainrai, the players have not been paid for January, although he is flying to England to try and sort things out.
The difficulty for any prospective purchasers is that they would have to provide £12m in proof of funds and another £20m in repayments to former creditors. There are not that many prospective purchasers of football clubs around at the moment and there are less indebted clubs available.
The Supporters’ Trust are developing a Plan B to start a phoenix club and it is to be hoped that in the worst case scenario they could be given some external help to get them off the ground.