It looks as if Truro City, of Conference South could have just over a week to live. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19797854 http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19757876 Is football going to the dogs?
That is sad to see, the far South West is under represented at senior levels and Truro had moved well up the leagues - I hope they don't fold - but there is no question that football really represents the world we live in - a few with too much and many with too little.
Doesn't appear football authorities treat all clubs the same... Exhibit A http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19859492 Exhibit B please log in to view this image
Well thank goodness we only had 2 youth players signed + 1 on a pre-contract agreement before the start of the season. MLG you can try as hard as you like to compare the 2 situations but you'll end up with egg on your face if you do.
Pompey have spent the last 2 years+ releasing youth players, not putting them on the bench etc etc all so they don't count towards their senior player quota and they can then sign more senior players. Pompey are simply being treated more favourably than other teams in financial problems. Just read that BBC article about Kettering and compare what the FA told them compared to Pompey signing players like Buzsaky whilst in admin. You also have the farce of Pompey will be getting a mere -10 points when the Chainrai/PST takeover goes through after diluting a failed CVA. Yet Bournemouth and Rotherham had -17 points for failing to agree a CVA and it being their 2nd admin. Pompey diluting a failed CVA amounts to the same as not agreeing a CVA in the first place. As it is their 3rd CVA, Pompey should be hit with at least -19 points when Chainrai/PST takeover. Try defending the Football League giving Pompey such a lenient punishment. The club are getting off lightly for effectively writing off £200m of debt and using it for 2 FA Cups final and 7 years in the Premier League. If Pompey stay in League One this season at the expense of another League One side is is a tragedy. Even Michael Appleton is continuing this "woe is me" attitude and "let us be competitive", he hasn't a clue! You should be using youth team players, not signing internationals like Buzaky, Gypes, Ertl, Dumbuya etc. The money they are using for those wages could be going to the creditors rather than turning £200 million of debt into a diluted £500k CVA after a previously failed CVA.
Would you have bothered to write all this, if it was about another club, say Ipswich, for instance? I reckon you've poached most of that from somewhere else anyway.
Why are you you turning a thread that isn't to do with Portsmouth into an excuse to bash us? We get it, you're a Southampton fan and you dislike Portsmouth but you talk as if the FA being completely useless and having double standards is something new. Newsflash: it's not. It's not we have any control what the FA's decisions regarding these kinds of matters and frankly a club completely going out of business is more important than any petty rivalry or point-scoring on your part.
It is of course quite possible that they were not ready, or simply not good enough, to play at this level. Appleton did make the point that he wasn't going to be responsible for destroying youngsters by using them in a situation which was not of their making. Perhaps you would? If so shame on you. I did read it, we are under an embargo and don't have more than 20 players signed. Only 2 are not on non-contract terms, the 2 youngsters - and the Administrator is ensuring that they are paid, which the Kettering players aren't. Kettering have 30 players signed and registered. Maybe they should have had you advising them. My god Matthew Le God, you do exaggerate. For the TWO CVAs we will have been hit by -29 points. -19 points have been applied and the next -10 points to be applied is because the first "agreed" CVA failed. I wouldn't attempt to defend the FL. You should have added "in your opinion". I would however question why there hasn't been a forensic analysis of the debts incurred and criminal charges brought against the culprits. Well of course he is - it's a fair comment as far as he's concerned - and yes he does. In your (extremely inflated) opinion. However yours is just another voice in the wilderness. The creditors have agreed the offer made, and the club is being run by a Court appointed official in accordance with English law and FL rules and regulations.
Hmm, all of this- just about whether a group of young men can kick a ball round a pitch for 90 minutes. Football should just go back to its roots- sport isn't about this .. Fans of Kettering Town have all my symapthy these next few days- their club is going out of business- and they just lost what was their likely last game today- a 7-0 defeat to Bashley infront of 300 spectators .. I've always thought these past few months- it could easily have been us. If our club had folded, I couldn't bring myself to follow another team- and even if after a few years I did, it would never be the same as supporting Pompey! Why did sport and money have to mix in the way it has? ..
I don't know how many other people on this board subscribe to the magazine "When Saturday comes" but Truro were the subject of an article about 12 months ago. They had spent a considerable amount of money to move up the leagues as their chairman believed that there was a market for a top flight football club in Cornwall. From recollection, I believe that the same chairman either bought Plymouth Argyle or was one of the parties interested in it at one stage. Alot of the maintream press seems to focus entirely of Premier League clubs over-spending beyond their means but the problem is also manifest outside the four top divisions. I think the relegation and promotion issues from League Two has made clubs realise that the "fantasy" situation of clubs like Wimbledon and Wigan is no longer a pipedream and clubs without any FL pedigree can now feel that a run out in League Two is a possibility. I don't think that Truro are unique is spending huge sums of money and there is even the case where Man City are financing one of the Amateur teams to the extent that they have changed the clubs colour and badge to match the blue of city who have payed for training facilities, etc. Truro are probably singled out at the moment because of the fact that there were suspicions about the club being taken over and steared in this direction. To echo the initial post, I'm not sure if football is going to the dogs but a good point was made in WSC this month concerning Llanelli who have been Welsh Cup winners and have enjoyed several runs in Europe as a consequence yet fail to attract more than 350 fans to home games due to the ready availability of Pemier League Football due to Sky. I think that TV football must be responsible for killing off the sport at lower level as the coverage since the 1990's has become wall-to-wall. The next big obstacle will be the quest for Category One Academy status which will see the large clubs snapping up young talent from across the country which I would suggest will prove a disaster for all clubs outside of the Championship.
Ian - I don't subscribe to WSC, but I remember reading an article about Truro and their owner/chairman years ago in FourFourTwo, in which he said pretty much the same thing about there being a market for a club in Cornwall. Correct me if I'm wrong, but were they not attracting over 1,000 fans to the majority of matches around 2007/2008? It's a real shame to see them in this position. How many times in the past few years have we seen clubs achieve too much too quickly through over-investment, and then suffer the consequences? Aside from yourselves, Gretna FC are probably the best example. They swept aside all before them between 2004 and 2007 (when they were promoted to the SPL), even reaching the Scottish Cup final as a Scottish Division Two club and holding Hearts to a 1-1 draw before losing on penalties. The following season they were thrashed by Derry in UEFA Cup qualifying. When they eventually reached the SPL their ground was deemed to be of such a poor standard that they had to rent Motherwell's Fir Park. By April attendances were as low as 450, they had multi-million pound debts and their über rich owner had fallen ill and withdrawn all funding. Football is a game - and business - of fine margins. Imagine how different the club's future might have been if they'd beaten Hearts in the Cup Final; how different it might have been if they'd qualified for the UEFA Cup proper; how different it might have been if they'd stepped back and taken stock of their situation when told they couldn't even play at their own ground in the SPL (a problem which defeated Falkirk in 2003). Similar problems have occurred throughout the English divisions as well. My own club, Hull City, took a gamble on a new 25,000-seater ground whilst in the 4th tier and it paid dividends, largely due to our ability to actually draw decent crowds. Within 6 years we were Premier League club. For every HCAFC, however, there's a Darlington. They moved into a stadium of similar capacity and, when they finally made it out of the 4th Division nearly a decade after leaving Feethams, it was through the relegation trapdoor and into the barren wilderness of non-league. They've since gone bust and are now playing as a reformed phoenix club called Darlington 1883 in Division One of the Northern Premier League - English football's 9th tier. Current attendances are a respectable ~1,250, which isn't much less than their average in their final season as a League club. We can also look to Coventry as an example of what-not-to-do. The fact of the matter is, you're always going to have problems when you have a league structure like the one in the England. Go to Spain, and their second tier is little more than a training league for Madrid and Barcelona's reserve sides. Likewise Germany's third tier, in which Stuttgart's reserve side play. The national associations in those countries allow this as it means that the top teams essentially have two cracks of the player development whip, thus ensuring continuous high-standard performance internationally (both club and country), thus improving their image with UEFA and FIFA. Over here, every team is a fully independent entity, fighting for fan support and income with every other. Even if we only look as far down the divisions as the Conference Premier, there are 116 clubs, and nearly all are full-time and professional. Christ, three years ago a Tuesday night Conference game between Oxford and Luton was watched by nearly 11,000 people. There are La Liga sides who can't attract crowds like that. For every action though, there is an equal and opposite reaction. If those fans are there, it means they're neglecting other teams who are perhaps in greater need of support. Then, because said teams feel they are missing out on income, they speculate in an attempt to accumulate and fork out on new and more expensive players to try and forge a team whose performances will prove too good to miss for football fans. Unfortunately, more often than not, the opposite happens.
In terms of other teams who invested huge sums of money- with no result, I think of Notts Country a few years back. They got Sven Goran Eriksson as manager, and signed Sol Campbell, amongst other high profile players- within a month, their owner ran out of money, sold the club- and everyone left! However, Crawley have invested a lot these past few years- three automatic promotions in a row- (2nd tier non league, Blue Square Bet Premier, League Two)- shows they are a team on the up. It all depends on how much dosh your ambitious owner has. I'm hoping our new owner is a right Sugar Daddy, like Sheikh Mansour or Abramovich. That would do just fine!
Erik / Pompey London I think that most football fans are used to the idea of clubs from the top two tiers often over-spending or having ideas that others might consider to be totaly unrealistic. Until I subscrived to WSC I had no idea that the same problem manifest's itself so far down the lower leagues. I can't recall who the other club was (although I recollect they were a non-league team from around the outskirts of London) but there was anot. Croydon sounds familiar???her incident about 2 seasons ago where a non-league club had been signing former professionals on considerably high wages for the league. I've a funny feeling that former premiership player might have been associated with the team. They were compared to Truro and it transpired that two Indian brothers were using the club to launder money from criminal activities. At the time, the competitors could not understand how they had so much money to spend in that particular league I'm not too surprised by Truro's predicament but it seems bizarre that provinical clubs of this size should find themselves in difficulty. I've never been to a non-league game and am not sure about how well these teams are supported. My impression is that the number of fans is usually numbered in the 100's (should find out on Saturday as I am hoping to go to watch Winchster play.) It is strange that so many of these clubs are actually professional too albeit I would exclude former league clubs from this assumption.
- We can't start paying the CVA payments until we are out of admin. As it stands, the FL are stalling due to possible legal action/blackmail from Chanrai if they don't favour him. We are using youth players. They are on less than £500pw. We also have a squad, of which half is loans. We don't pay the wages. The rest are freebies, on low wages. To reiterate, our admin was hired by the courts of England. We are ran by them. We would not and cannot spend more than we make. Hence why Appy is potentialy having to release more players, with the threat of Chanrai leeching the club even more. Do you know what Buszaky, Dumbaya, Ertl etc etc are on. No, so shut up acting like your in the know about our situation, and coming on here with your holier than thou attitude. You know fook all about what's gone on within the last 4 years. The fact that Many Pompey fans have been arrested for protesting about what has happened, whilst the plod do nothing about the real criminals in the boardroom. I suggest you do some research of the last 4 years, before you come back on here and think you know it all.
I wouldn't bother Hermie - he's gone to wash the egg off his face I think, if he's the poster I think he is, he's gone to torment the posters on the News site.
