The fact that "Pompey pay back a loan" is newsworthy is hilarious
Baby-steps on the path to redeeming our name.
Some of these other clubs are taking a huge gamble by spending big and hoping they get promoted. I'm not saying it's smart, but it alters the cost/benefit scenario. You have no hope of being promoted, therefore you should be spending a lot less. To be blunt, you should be paying non-football league salaries. That way, if you get demoted, your finances are sustainable. And if you stay up, it's massive profit. But that's not happening.
Your first season when you were in League 1, when you started with a league -10 point reduction (or was it more than that) when it looked unlikely you'd get promoted, did you begin the season with players on League 2 wages? I'm guessing you didn't, but that put you in good stead for the following season when you got promoted.
Likewise I think i's a question of ambition and thinking of next season. If we can afford the wages and the CEO says we can, then there's no problem in spending a bit now (within reason) even if we're not promoted. What do we want? Do we want to be content with barely scraping away from relegation or do we want to be content with (to quote my whore of an ex) "giving it a real go"? There is no reason why ambition cannot be matched with realism. And apparently we've gotten a lot better since the new manager came in, so it's not over yet!
Also, your supporter's trust is a sham. You didn't raise enough money to finance a takeover. It only happened because a couple of rich bigwigs threw in a ton of money. Hopefully, they have Portsmouth's best interests at heart. But if you think the fans are actually running the club, you're crazy. All the supporters did was front just enough cash that it made it super-easy for someone to leverage a buyout and a controlling interest with very little cash at hand.
Au contraire, mon ami. Take a look at this:
http://www.pompeytrust.com/index.ph...ticle&id=611:elections&catid=34:demo-category
Essentially, with the board composition of Portsmouth FC, the PST have three seats on the board and a 52%-ish stakeholding. However, as you can see, there are elections in which PST members vote for the composition of the PST board which in turn makes up the composition of the Portsmouth FC board. So yes, yes the 'fans' do have a say in the same 'way' we all have a say in the running on this country: not directly, but by electing representatives that represent them and (in theory) their views. The fan ownership of Portsmouth is no more a sham than democracy in the UK is (ignoring crazy PMs who do whatever they like and take us into wars no-one wants, but in principle....)
Would like to know how much ex-England international Nicky Storey is getting paid at Pompey seeing how he was too expensive for Bristol City to keep on their books.
I don't know what he is being paid, but I think it's worth pointing out that because someone is too expensive for Bristol, does not mean they are necessarily expensive. To give an example, if the weekly wage budget of Bristol is £50k (that's a random number, I have no idea what it actually is), then any amount above that is in theor more than they can afford. Therefore, Bristol would want to get rid of one or more players, and they would get rid of those which are not necessarily needed for playing reasons even if they're cheap. If a club is downsizing, it will tend to prioritise those players it feels it does not need. Perhaps it would keep them if there was more money, but perhaps not. So for example say Sam Baldock was on £4000 a week and Shorey was on £1000 a week. If the current Bristol weekly budget was £51k, then they would need to get rid of someone, so they'd go for Shorey because he is too expensive because Bristol are over budget but by that same token Baldock is too expensive and so are all of the other players as Bristol are over budget yet Shorey is the one who is let go because clearly his value for money is not considered to be as great as the other players. If that makes any sense. So my point is, to say a player who is too expensive for a team inherently means that he is a expensive in absolute terms is a bit overly simplistic and may not accurately reflect the reality. Essentially, it boils down to the fact that: how expensive (x) a player is based on their value to the team on the pitch (v) compared to their wages (w), therefore we could express it: x = v/w.... or something. For second string players, the value of v will be low, while for first string players, the value of v will be high.