2 league titles and two FA cups, SPEAKS FOR ITSELF WHO HAS THE HISTORY AND ITS NOT YOU SCUMMERS. He says using his outdoor voice.PUP
BBC reporting that Chanrai's Portpin is now the preferred bidder. From a commercial point of view, Portpin will have the better financial nous to run the company but i would fear that it won't necessairly be for the benefit of the club. The best thing that could have happened would have been for the PST to acquired it and gained custody of the club until such time as it had been stablised. That would be the point to fell it on to another party. Shame that it seems to be the same old distrusted parties that want to acquire the club. Something has got to happen soon otherwise you will run the risk of fourth tier football next season and having this campaign effectively scrubbed as a competition. I'm surprised that Appleton hasn't walked but his kudos with potential new suitors must be rising by the day.
On Express FM Football Hour Colin Farmery, the Trust spokesman said that they still haven't been told and that this is, at this moment, a rumour still.
Another rumour is that TB is in trouble with PKF because of the way he has preferred the PST bid, but again, it's just another rumour. There are lots of them flying around because there's a vacuum of information. The longer the silence continues the more rumours will start. All we know is that 1) TB has to do what is best for the creditors, and 2) both PST and Portpin have been given contracts of sale conditions. This is probably just another Portpin attempt to rattle the PST.
It's intriguing how the various parties bidding for Portsmouth get seriously considered by the administrator. A large part of my job involves procurement and where someone tendering a bid is known to have performed poorly previously, extra care and attention is taken into consideration should they find themselves in a preferable position. In certain circumstances, a bid will get turned down due to concerns about a party's ability to fulfil it's obligations. Most contractors for whom I have worked also have a black list of companies who have performed especially poorly and will not be invited to tender for a variety of reasons. To me, it seems strange that the limitations upon who can bid for a football club are far less stringent. Looking at the bids being received for Portsmouth it is pretty amazing that Trevor Birch is considering a bid from Portpin where they have performed poorly on the two previous occasions when they owned the club. Reading the article on the BBC Sports page today, it appears that your former Chairman, David Lampitt has expressed further opinions that cast doubt on Portpin's alleged "innocence" in Portsmouth's earlier failings. Two of the bidders have had an unhappy association with the club in the past and, if I was in Trevor Birch's position, I would be sceptical of their ability to perform any better or not sell the club on to other disreputable companies as has been the case with Chanrai and the Saudi bidder. Surely this would be sufficient for an administrator who was being diligent to discount the bids? The third bid from the former owner of Watford would seemingly warrant similar reservations. I think most non-Pompey fans must view the current situation with disbelief and amazement. A successful Portpin bid would, in my opinion, ultimately lead to the club being sold again to the first party that will offer sufficient for Chanrai to recoup his investment. His record of selling the club has been a disaster and ill-judged in the past. Surely it is time for the old, discredited familiar faces who have brought the club to it's knees to be at least discounted if not black-listed from bidding. The club needs a clean break from the likes of Chanrai who have repeatedly picked over the carcass of Portsmouth FC. It now appears , according to the BBC, that Chanrai's preferred bidder status might have some legs but I think Birch has a duty of care to ensure the future interests of the club as opposed to the nominal sums of money the creditors are likely to re-coup. Accept Portpin and it is only more likely that you will be in the same situation in a few seasons time. I don't see the logic of what is going on at the moment and none of it seems to have the stability of the club at heart.
Perhaps that is because we look at the club in its entirety, whereas it is actually just a type of business. As far as I can work out the FA, FL & PL offer "membership" to the football and premier leagues as long as certain conditions are met, in accordance with their rules of membership. Their role appears to be ensuring(?) integrity within the sport, so tend to get involved with such things as anti-racism issues and on-field behaviour rather than how the business itself is run, unless it falls foul of their membership rules, which administration does but asset stripping doesn't. We tend to forget that the FA is called the Football Association and not the Football Authority. Their Directors and Owners Test is purely one of acceptability of the offer of membership to the league rather than of their suitability to run a business. TB has to try and do his best for the creditors which includes the staff. Chanrai's debenture is so large that it's probably in the creditors best interests to keep the club as a going concern because if he liquidated there would only be funds for Chanrai and everyone else would be left penniless. Chanrai was suggesting that he would take a lesser amount but that appears to be yet another untruth on his part. The only thing that surprises me is that TB didn't go to the courts to get the debt reduced, but perhaps the cost was too great to take that route. Any buyer for the club will have to reach an agreement with Chanrai over the use of Fratton Park. They aren't the only ones. It all seems to come down to that damned debenture. Without that hanging over our heads I'm pretty sure Chanrai would have been kicked into touch. It seems that the FL have agreed that Chanrai will pass the D&O Test as will the PST so without another credible buyer on the horizon there doesn't appear to be much that TB can do. However the silence from TB is quite deafening!
