Portsmouth City Council to ride in and rescue the club?

There have been gigs at St. Mary's in the past too and a redevloped Fratton Park would have to compete against the stadium in Southampton. I don't think this side of the business has actually been that instrumental for Saints.

In an American model it would have been within the communities interest to buy the ground simply to ensure that the sports club didn't up sticks and move to another city. Locally, Hampshire CC's involvement in the purchase of the Rose Bowl development has seen a lot of heated publicity as to how public moey should be invested. The difference with Portsmouth is that the potenetial is for far larger crowds at the cricket (I think the Rose Bowl is about 15k judging from the England matches I have attended) and that there is a consensus that the club should really be made to sort out it's own muddle. The problem with the latter is that it has been given the opportunity to do so and has failed to sort itself out. This is a result of having a string of owners whose interests are well outside Portsmouth.

For a non-Portsmouth fan the situation you are in is fascinating. The combination of a ground owned by the council and a club owned by a Supporter's Trust does make sense given the poor record of the club's ownersip since at least Milan Mandaric. (You can debate how wisely he invested in the club given the non-existence of either a proper stadium or training ground but the achievement of putting Portsmouth FC in their true, merited status in the English league) I think the "Romantic" option makes sense especially in the light of your current predictament for which a commercially viable model looks difficult to achieve. Such a move would ensure that the club's interests were maintained but I think a successful bid by the trust could ultimately ensure a permanent position in the bottom two tiers of English football as you strive to find the requisite level of investment to acheive promotion. As the Southampton model shows, a series amount of capital is required to eventually return to the Premierhsip. This will be well beyond the means of the PST.

I believe that St. Mirren have implimented a novel system whereby the ground and the club's assets are ring-fenced from future risk. it is a while since I read the article but it did suggest that many Scottish clubs were following this model given the fact that many are on the brink of going out of business.

The comment about Portsmouth FC bringing shame to the city is also intriguing. As I have said before, Portsmouth have a far stronger heritage than Southampton and during the mid-20th Century the importance of the Navy to the town would have spread their reputation overseas in the days before mass media coverage. Unfortunately, football is very much under the microscopic these days and I feel that whilst the statement is harsh, a failure to rectify the situation will reflect on the city. I don't think the gravity of the situation at Portsmouth has properly sunk in outside Hampshire and the combination of the situation at Rangers merits, in my opinion, some form of official enquiry as to who actually owns the football clubs in this country and just how efficiently these owners have been vetted. In the light of such an enquiry, I feel that the solution of council-owned stadia might prove to be both practical and a pragmatic business decision. Since the fortunes of football clubs do reflect upon how people see a community and have the potential to attract future investment, I can see how the acquisition of stadia would attract local authorities. However, given the current austerity measures currently being pursued, in many instances it could be political suicide in the current political climate.
Ian

 

Great contribution Ian.

I agree with you, a council/PST ownership of ground and assets does seem novel, but more importantly, makes sense.

I know St Marys have had Bon Jovi etc at St Marys, but for some reason it has not been used for a long time for a gig. I use the Ricoh as an example because the council put the event on, it is nothing to do with the football club - whereas because SFC own St Marys, then it comes firmly down to the football club to authorise the gigs.

The only massive disadvantage with a council owned ground is that the football club will see only a % of ticket revenue for games, nothing from food and drink inside the ground and nothing from "extra curricular" events at the ground - so definitely pros and cons with this set-up.

 

It could be possible for the club to buy back the ground in the future though I would have thought.

If the council did become involved at least the ground would be safe.

 

I believe this kind of offer was on the table for Coventry also, but because of their lack of attendance, it was not financially viable.

I think they are now discussing a year on year % increase in ownership and this has attracted new ownership interest in the club.

 

IAN THUMBWOOD

I,m afraid you are well wide off the mark regarding th Rosebowl (or Ageis Bowl) as they choose to call it.
Hampshire CC would certainly have gone bust without the intervention of Eastleigh Borough Council, not Hampshire CC.
They are taking a massive gamble with the ratepayers money (around 40million)
Even the council,s own offficers are saying the financial position at the Rosebowl is "unsustainable"
Hampshire Cricket spent a fortune(which they didn,t have) thinking they would get the big 5day test matches.
They now know they will not & will never fill the ground to capacity. Mostly the "crowds" are pitiful.
A senior member off the MCC tells me they only fill Lords cricket ground once every 4 yrs, when the Australians
come

 

Whilst I really hate to point this out to you SA , you are off topic!

Try the Cricket threads!

 

I don't think that lack of attendance would be a major concern for you blues. With your ground you will never be able to count on attendances alone keeping you afloat.

I do like the idea of the increased % of ownership idea, though how that would work and how much it would cost the club is another question.

 

The model is based on gates of 11000(ish) in the championship. Considering we don't know if we'll have a club and we've still had 7500+ ST renewals, we'll be fine gates wise.

 

That is something to shout about with your club not knowing where or who they will be playing next season. League wise that is.

7500+ fans with Season Tickets shows a true love for the club irrespective of who they play. Makes it seem quite possible for the gate numbers to reach the necessary levels. Full respect to the 7500.

 

The Council have set demands that must be agreed upon for the loan of £1.4million to be granted. These conditions are:

* The Trust, the Premier League and Portsmouth FC must have an agreement in writing that the loan will be paid back from parachute payments in August 2013

* The Trust's business plan must be approved by the Football League

* All playing staff must have agreed to to wages/compensation within the boundaries of the Trust's financial plan

* The Trust must have first recieved the £3million pledged by supported plus and additonal £500,000 for contingency purposes

* The Trust's directors must take personal charge of the assests to ensure repayment of the loan, or else gain an investors guarentee which has a similar value to the loan.

 

Don't count on it. Portsmouth City Council aren't part of the 'football family' (excuse me while I gag) so the utterly self-interest driven Premier League won't give a toss about them getting back what they owed.

 

As far as the Premier League is concerned, the "Football Family" consists of Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool and new members Man City. Every other club in the country is of no consequence.

 

And all the players with over inflated egos who dive, shag their brother's wives, shag the team mates wives, racially abuse other players and so on.

 

According to the gov't statistics, the average annual wage is £24,232 - Ben Haim seems oblivious and completely ignorant of the fact that the £300,000 he is arguing over would take the average supporter over 12 years to earn.

His current annual wage would take the average worker over 77 years to earn.

Yes he has a contract which should be legally binding, (although Peter Storrie should be forced to pay it..... prat) but pardon us for having so little sympathy for him.

 

I would add that Ben Haim's attitude does himself very little favors considering he is basically pointing a finger at the current administrators and saying "why should I do it if they dont?" and ignoring the host of former players, staff and local businesses who have waved money they were legally due.

 

Gotye predicted this apparently:

Some people offered up answers.
We made out like we heard, they were only words.
They didn't add up to a change in the way we were living,
And the saddest thing is all of it could have been avoided.

But it was like to stop consuming's to stop being human,
And why would I make a change if you won't?
We're all in the same boat, staying afloat for the moment.

 

I also heard - how true it is I don't know - that when TBH came back from West Ham Chanrai wouldn't pay his wages (which we all knew anyway as they were disputing it with WH) but that it was left to CSI to settle up all his back pay - which explains some of the £10.5m.

 

M

 

I listened to the match tonight and was on the News live text (multi-tasker) and conflicting reports coming out of FP with some staff being told to get their desks cleared ready for Friday and others being told that Chanrai takes over again on Friday.

I would not like to be a member of staff there right now.

Also Liam Lawrence played tonight - usually if there is a club in for them they don't play, just in case of injury.

Life with Pompey is more thrilling than a very complex "Who done it?" mystery game.