With news that Bolton unilaterally postponed their match tonight without first informing the EFL or their opponents (Doncaster) https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/49399958 do you think there should be further punishment for the club? I don't believe in kicking a man when he's down, but this must surely give Bolton an unfair advantage, compared to their current state, when the match is rearranged. Their last game of last season was cancelled when their players went on strike and the match was awarded as a 2-0 defeat. Would a further points deduction of 3 points be in order for refusal to play the match at the allotted time? As I said above I'm not intending to be seen to be kicking them while they're down, but decisions like this could have implications for other sides at the end of the season, especially if the top or bottom of the table is tight. Your thoughts
Not many other teams, or the Football League itself, were too concerned regarding our financial plight a few years ago, and we were "hung out to dry" so to speak. Thanks to the hard work of the Portsmouth Supporters Trust, and then Michael Eisner and the Tornante Group, PFC are now without debt, and being properly run. Whilst Bolton are a lovely old club with history, they have not been run properly for a few years now and deserve their 12 point deduction this season. I would be extremely sorry personally to see them go bankrupt, and disappear from the Football League, but it may well become inevitable. Same applies to Bury FC who are also in a dire financial state themselves. Sad times indeed.
I cannot comment on the current situation but Woopert's comment on Bolton's fine history bought to mind only the second time I saw Portsmouth play. I think it was one of Pompey's last games before relegation from Div 1. They lost 1-0 to Bolton from a Nat Lofthouse goal. Lofthouse, and their goal keeper Hopkinson, were current England internationals at that time
At least with Bury, I'm not sure it's fair to simply say it's a case of a club overspending. The fact is, Steve Dale is an asset stripper. Companies House is full of records of companies that he has been director of that have been liquidated. Not only that be he has bought the club for £1 and hasn't paid salaries to staff members or players, so it's more due to the actions of their owners that Bury are in such a state (and in directly the EFL due to allowing a known asset stripper from taking over the club). It's like the second time we went into administration, it wouldn't be fair to say that was because we particularly overspent. It was because suddenly our owner (Vladimir Antanov) was hit was a European-wide arrest warrant for embezzling funds from a Lithuanian bank... Therefore we were essentially ownerless, hence we fell into administration again.
